


Reiteration

by Otherworldliness



Series: Reiteration [1]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Inevitability, Kinda, M/M, Soulmates, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2019-10-29 05:57:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 69,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17802317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Otherworldliness/pseuds/Otherworldliness
Summary: Reiteration: the action of repeating something, typically for emphasis or clarity.Or,Robert Sugden falls asleep in August 2017 as a broken man rapidly loosing everything he loves. He awakes in August 2014 with more knowledge and hindsight than any man should, but more importantlyHope.





	1. Lets start from the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I've been tentatively looking into the Emmerdale fandom for about a year now and felt like I'd already given enough of my time to these idiot boys, so i might as well give some more.

He woke in a daze. His whole body seemed to throb as he was kept still under some sort of lethargic spell, the makings of a migraine burning into the side of his head.

Slowly he was gifted with memories of prison sentences, Christmas decorations and the potent taste of alcohol on his lips. Then, like a tidal wave crashing and exploding, red rimmed eyes trapped behind a wooden table, a mug laying broken on the floor and the bitter smell of a woman’s perfume.

_Aaron._

The bed he was laying in was suddenly too comfortable, silk sheets where cotton was supposed to be. With the energy of a man possessed he sat up, throwing the sheets from his skin as if they had burned and leaped out of the bed, headache forgotten, and took in the state of the room. It was large, as grand as a modern bedroom could be with the small chandelier hanging over the bed, the lengthy vanity table stretching out on the opposite side of the room filled with an assortment of make-ups and the en suite that he could see through the door to his right.

If this had been anywhere else, Robert would’ve stumbled into that room beside him, fallen to his knees by the toilet and thrown his guts out. It was what he _had_ done; following Rebecca. It was what he knew he would do again, someday, being who he was: Robert Sugden, professional cheater and destroyer of lives. But he knew this room. Like he knew that if he turned his head to the left, he would be greeted with a large window, decorated with stained glass images in each corner of flowers and flowing lines – a design Robert himself had chosen – with a view that was unmistakably London.

This was Chrissie’s room. Not just Chrissie’s room, _his_ room. The throbbing in his mind began to grow as it tried to argue against the evidence presented to it: _Robert’s_ boxers thrown on the floor, _Robert’s_ deodorant on the vanity table, _Robert’s_ old phone on the bedside table.

But.

Robert hadn’t been in this room for three years.

Hadn’t he?

No. He couldn’t have been just dreaming. He could still feel Aaron, a heavy arm draped across his waist, the scrape of his beard on Robert’s cheek, rough where Robert was smooth; smell the sweat of him, petrol and burnt toast and pure _man._ The living, breathing entity of all the things Robert wanted. Aaron couldn’t be a dream, he _couldn’t be, couldn’t be, couldn’t be._

He couldn’t remember how he had gotten his phone in his hand, only that he had, the blue Facebook icon not loading fast enough for his trembling hands.

But there he was. Not Aaron Dingle – he’d almost made the mistake of typing that in – not yet. Aaron Livsey, though, had a profile picture he must have taken years before, all short hair and scowling next to a younger Adam and Vic.

Real, then.

Knees hit the carpeted floor as the relief turned Robert’s legs to jelly. The same lethargy hit him again, keeping him glued to the floor and gasping for breathas any shock he was feeling turned to fear. A thousand explanation ran through his mind. He was being punished, trapped in a nightmare world that he would have been more than happy in less than three years ago. He’d been blessed with visions of the future to save himself. While sleeping, he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning that had sent him back in time. The more irrational he became, the worse the headache grew; leaving him grasping at his hair and reminding himself to breathe.

And breathe.

And breathe. 

Eventually the throbbing subsided, leaving only a gentle tapping in the back of his mind and his thoughts clear as he formulated and planned and _schemed_. He could go back to Emmerdale, this time with hindsight. He could find Aaron, he could-

“Robert?”

Oh, right.

“Robert, what are you doing on the floor? Are you ill?”

That might have been harder than he thought.

***

It turned out to be the 20th August 2014, exactly three years before he and Aaron had been broken up, before Rebecca’s pregnancy; before Robert had ruined everything. After shaking off Chrissie (with as small amount of physical contact as he could manage) Robert had showered and changed as quickly as possible to stop himself from passing out in the process. Then, ignoring calls from Lawrence downstairs, had rushed out to his car (his _car_ , Jesus Christ) and driven to the closest supermarket he could find.

His plan was simple: if he was going to change things, then he would need to have everything he could remember mapped out in front of him. From there maybe he could figure out where everything had gone so _wrong_ , where the ground had started slipping out from beneath him and he’d lost control.

Robert bought both a 2014 and 2015 planner, ignoring the questioning look from the other shoppers. He realised how he must have looked: blond hair still wet from the shower with his blue shirt untucked and messily buttoned. The Robert from this time would’ve been ashamed of himself, would have escaped from the shop as soon as he could or would have tried to save the situation with a wink or a devilish grin.

Not this time. Not anymore.

Once back in the car, Robert found a pen in the glove box and tried to figure out where to begin. There was stuff that came to him easily, where things ended well, stuff like:

_December 4th, 2014: Aaron and I kiss at the layby_

And

_December 25th, 2014: Andy and Katie’s wedding._

But with that came the rest, the stuff he wished he could forget, the:

_February 5th, 2015: Chrissie and I get married. I kill Katie. Aaron covers it up._

And

_July 22nd, 2015: The lodge. I shoot Paddy. Aaron tells Chrissie about the affair._

Just like that Robert filled in as much as he could, keeping the details brief for his own sanity. Where he couldn’t remember the exact date, he put it as close to the time that he thought it had been. He thought – or at least, hoped – that if things went well enough earlier on, he wouldn’t have to worry about half of the bad stuff later.

_Hoped._

When Robert was finished, he flipped to the very back of the 2015 planner where there was a single blank page. On it he made a list and by the time it was done he had filled the whole page with scribbled names and locations. It was the formation of a plan – the beginnings of one, at least. A blister had started to form on his thumb from where the pen had been crushed into it, and he went to suck on it when his phone started to ring; filling the otherwise silent car.

It was Chrissie, because of course it was. He couldn’t avoid her; not like he would have if this was the real him from now, she deserved better this time round. Hesitantly, he picked up the phone.

“ _Robert_ ,” she gasped, in that voice that had always made him feel like a thirteen-year-old who was being scolded for not cleaning his room properly. “Where the hell have you gone? You looked awfully pale before you left, and Dad said you completely blanked him before walking right out the door! Honestly, I know you two don’t get on all the time but that doesn’t mean you can just leave the house.”

Robert found himself remembering how much he _hadn’t_ missed this. For a moment he longed for Aaron, for the way his voice would sound over the phone in that moment. Phones always had a way of softening his voice a little, as if he was trying to keep their conversations away from anyone who could hear his side, like the only person he wanted to hear him talk was Robert. “I’m sorry,” he said, realising with a sudden rise of guilt that he was. Out of all the people Robert had ever hurt, Chrissie was in probably one of the worst ways.

“Hmm,” Chrissie replied. “Well, I suppose you can make it up to me by coming back from wherever you are and coming with me to the meeting you promised you’d attend last week.”

Right. Robert remembered the meeting, the clients – Chrissie would be fine with them on her own, on another day, she’d never needed him for those things as much as both she and him had ever tried to make out. “I actually, um, don’t think I’m going to be able to make it.”

There was a pause. “Why?”

“I have a few things I think I should tell you,” Robert started. “A few things you deserve to know.”

It was now or never.

***

In the end, the two of them were sat in the dining room at the London house, sat opposite sides of the table while Lawrence undoubtedly listened from behind the door. Chrissie had agreed to push the meeting back a week, and on the drive home (his _old_ home, he reminded himself) Robert had thought about how he was going to do this. If he was going back to Emmerdale, if he was going to set things right, then he couldn’t come back engaged. That had been part of what Robert had scribbled on the blank page; part of what had caused the problems between him and Aaron in the first place, the jealousy and mistrust had grown because they had started as an affair, because Aaron didn’t know if Robert would end up doing the same to him.

So, Chrissie had to go.

But how?

He’d considered telling her he’d been having an affair – which, if he were being honest, wasn’t strictly untrue – like he should have done with Aaron. Or, telling her he’d decided he was too young for marriage, that he felt he was trapped within a lifestyle where he would always be competing and that he’d decided he had done enough of trying to please someone to last a life time. But both of those options defeated the purpose of what he was trying to achieve. So, this time he gave Chrissie something he had never done throughout their relationship:

Honesty.

“Bisexual?” Chrissie asked. When Robert had sat down, he’d realised he’d never done this before; coming out while having planned to. He decided that he liked that, having that kind of control over how he did it. This was a good start to change.

“Yeah,” he said, trying to keep eye contact, trying to seem like he wasn’t terrified despite wanting to do this.

“What does that mean, exactly?” Robert had a feeling that she did know, even where this conversation was headed, but wanted to make him say it. Make him squirm.

“That I like both,” he said. “Men and Women.”

“And why tell me now?” she asked, breaking the eye contact for just a second to look down at her own hand as it clenched into a fist on the table.

“Because it’s taken me a long time to figure out. Because … I’ve done some things neither of us are going to like talking about to figure it out.”

“Like what?”

Robert opened his mouth and closed it again. There was no way to say this nicely. Chrissie saw his hesitation, must have done, and jumped on it.

“Have you slept with a man before?” she asked.

Robert nodded.

“Have you … did you sleep with a man while with me?”

Robert nodded again, slower this time. “And women too,” he added, voice small, finally unable to look at her properly. “They were never long-lasting affairs. Not before we got serious. Usually one-night stands, I wouldn’t even know half their names.” Now that he started it was like he couldn’t stop himself, all the things he never got to admit to himself tumbling out of him from a barricade that had been kept closed for three years. “It was – it was because I could. Could have them, anyone I wanted, and have it mean nothing. Especially men. I didn’t want to believe that it meant anything but –”

Suddenly, Robert felt a sharp pain on the top of his head and heard a small clattering on the table. It was her engagement ring – she'd thrown it at him.

“Shut. Up,” she seethed, tears falling freely out of her eyes as she stood up. “ _Shut up_! I can’t believe you. Not that you cheated, no, I can believe that. Dad told me you would enough times and my own fears that I was too old for you gave me my own suspicions, but you – why tell me? We were going to get married, Robert, we would’ve done if Dad hadn’t had his heart attack. I would’ve given you anything you wanted. You could’ve just come out, I would've understood without the _gory details_. So why now?”

Chrissie put the force of her anger into a kick on the chair she’d just been sitting on, sending it flying back across the room, landing on the floor with a hollow thump. It made Robert sit back, moving a hand towards his mouth in shock and realise for the first time that he had been crying too.

“So why?” Chrissie asked again. “Have you met someone else? Finally found that long-lasting affair, as you so pleasantly put it?”

“Not yet,” Robert said. “I just knew I couldn’t marry you, it wasn’t right for either of us. We’d have been living a lie.”

A heavy silence stretched out between them before Chrissie nodded, walking across the room to pick up the chair. “I suppose I agree with you there.”

“Would you have preferred it if I hadn’t told you?” he asked, needing to know for future reference. “If I had just left you without an explanation instead?”

“No,” Chrissie said after a moment. “No, I would have preferred it if you hadn’t cheated in the first place.”

***

Chrissie had given him back the ring and let him keep the car, both of which he sold within a couple of weeks; opting to find his Porsche instead.

Lawrence had also agreed to send him off with a year's worth of wages, if only to keep him from suing them for firing him (they didn’t need to know he was going to quit anyway).

After that, Robert had stayed in a hotel in Leeds and continued to make plans. It was too early to go back to Emmerdale, he needed another month at least to work out how he was going to approach this. The first thing he did was buy the Mill. He would need to put all the work in that he had done the first-time round, but that was fine, that he could do from memory and even enjoy it more this time. What worried him was Aaron and Liv – the Mill had been their home in more sense than it had been his, at least officially. Robert couldn’t escape the feeling that he was stealing from them, taking the experience of buying their home away from them. But if this went well it would be their home again, eventually, and it couldn’t be stealing something that the two of them now would never have in the first place.

Next, he got into contact with Vic. They had always been talking in small ways after he had left the village, brief Christmas and birthday cards in the post along with follow requests on various social media. But this time he made the extra effort, asking her about her job, her friends (trying not to take too much interest in Aaron whenever she mentioned him, newly settled back into the village) and even Andy and Diane. With it, he spoon-fed her the information he needed her to have: his marriage had fell through, he was in between jobs, there were all these new things he’d discovered about himself he wanted to share with her in person.

All while this was happening, he had told the builders to begin preparing the Mill for construction. Vic talked about it in her messages, wondering who the mysterious new buyer could be and if they’d be coming to the village any time soon.

Now, Robert drove in his Porsche, filled to the brim with all his belongings, right past the ever-changing, yet forever the same, _Welcome to Emmerdale_ sign. Coming back the last time had made him think that the village never changed, even with the influx of people constantly coming and going. Even after finding a home in Emmerdale again, after finding Aaron, the looming, lush green fields and distant calls of farm animals would always set off a strange feeling deep inside of him. It was the same feeling he’d gotten whenever he had come home late as a teenager, or when he’d bunked off work at the farm.

He had it now, as one hand gripped tight onto the steering wheel and another placed over the two planners laying on the passenger seat.

The roads leading to the village had always felt too short, and before Robert knew it, he was parked right outside the Woolpack. With a deep breath, Robert took a hold of the 2014 planner; skipping to November. Today was the day before Ross Barton would’ve stolen his car. Robert hoped if he was here early then maybe he could distract Aaron from going to see whatever other car Ross would nick if Robert’s wasn’t there. The Home Farm robbery wasn’t going to be happening – Robert would have to construct a new situation where he and Aaron could get close.

The inside of the Woolpack was startling. Not because of anything to do with the building (the pub would always be the pub) but because the first person he saw sat at a table was Val. She was exactly as he remembered, sat with Eric, dressed in a back cardigan that made her red hair even more vibrant. Robert had to look away, eyes blinking rapidly, the guilt of what he knew would happen to her nearly eating him alive.

_Wouldn’t_ happen to her. Another thing he would have to take care of.

“Robert?”

Robert’s head snapped towards what he knew to be the voice of his sister, stood behind the bar with an equally as shocked Diane. A smile tugged at Robert’s lips, one that he knew would’ve made Aaron call him a smug bastard in that flirty way that only Aaron could. The excitement began the to build and flutter inside him, the anticipation of a life that was _better._ Screw the how’s and the whys, now he could be Robert Sugden: out-and-proud bisexual and good man.

_Hopefully._

“Miss me?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. A good day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert and Aaron meet and Robert's plans begin to fall into place.

Together, the three of them sat on the sofas in the back room of the pub, the familiarity of it all brushing over him softly; as if placing a gentle hand on Robert's shoulder and guiding him through memory lane.

“Do you want us to call Andy, pet?” Diane asked, and Robert thought of the last time he had seen him – all of the dirty laundry between them put to the side as they tearfully said goodbye. This was not that Andy, who, despite having lost his wife and put a bullet in Robert's shoulder, was maybe more willing to forgive. The Andy now was hostile towards him, and any arguments now needed to be contained, not the public, grandiose spectacles they had been before.

“I'd rather talk to the two of you first, if that's alright,” he said – and did.

He presented them with the same version of events he had given Chrissie: he had slept with both men and women throughout his relationship with her, refusing to label himself until the thought of marriage became so real that he had been forced to be honest and ended it while he still could. As expected they were both supportive, although Diane gave him a lecture on monogamy until Vic cut her off, claiming they were just happy to have him home.

“And about being bisexual,” Diane started. “You've thought this through properly?”

Vic slapped her lightly on the leg, “ _Diane_!”

“What I _meant_ is, are you happy, love?”

There were so many different ways he could interpret that question. Was he happy with himself? Happy with his life at the moment? Happy in general? Maybe if they'd asked him any of them the first time around he would've given a confident smile and asked 'Why wouldn't I be?' and have believed it wholeheartedly. Because he really had believed it, even with the lies and the affairs, believed he was living the life of the ideal man; financially successful and engaged to a woman. The man his Father would've wanted him to be.

Well, everyone knew how that line of thinking had turned out.

But to all of them now he had one answer, “I think I'm starting to be. Or at least am getting to a place where I think I can be happy. Really happy.”

Diane smiled. “Then that's all that matters.”

“How long are you thinking of staying?” Vic asked.

“How does permanently sound?” Robert replied, and to their shocked faces added, “I bought the Mill with what I could get out of my split with Chrissie. Coming out made me realise that there's so much of my life I've wasted and there's too much that I've missed.” Robert took a breath, his very real nerves and doubts creeping in. “I figured that, well, it might be time to finally come home.”

Vic let out a child-like squeal, rushing from where she sat opposite him and into his arms, knocking the air out of his lungs and with it any fears he had. Diane moved more tentatively, sitting beside him and placing a hand on his shoulder with a smile nonetheless.

It was the sort of welcome Robert knew he wouldn't find anywhere else, but thoughts of Andy and Katie quickly evaporated as, for the first time in months, he finally let himself relax.

“Oh – sorry, was just comin' in to make a cuppa.”

Like a bolt of lightning had just burst through the room, the air began to crackle and fizz around him; pulsating with the ferocity of Robert's want and desire as they surged through him suddenly.

Aaron stood at the back door, a hand placed on the handle and his beautiful body turned sideways as if to make a quick exit if he had to. He was wearing his purple hoodie, and Robert was immediately filled with memories of how it felt under his hands, whether that be picking it up off the bedroom floor where Aaron had discarded it, stripping it off his shoulder's in the heat of it or zipping it up for him when Robert had worried he might be getting too cold. There was also a memory of Liv knocking a full cup of coffee onto it, staining it in a way that was irreversible (no matter how hard Aaron had tried).

“That's fine, love,” said Diane, taking her hand off of Robert and bringing him back to the room. “We were just about finished in here anyway.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Vic break out into a grin, eye's twinkling. “Aaron,” she said. “You remember me talking about my brother Robert, don't ya?”

 _Oh_. Robert knew what she was doing – she'd had the same voice whenever she had tried to set up Finn with whatever usual suspect she'd had lined up. This, he realised, could be useful.

“Oh, yeah,” Aaron said, finally walking into the room, extending a hand out. “Y'alright mate?”

Much quicker than he probably should've, Robert shook his hand, trying to ignore the growing heat on the back of his neck. “Yeah, mate, nice to meet you,” he said, lamely.

It had been months, and even in that time Robert hadn't let himself think about it – hadn't dared to. But now Aaron was here, present in a way he had stopped himself from imagining; dark hair gelled back and blue eyes observing him, running up and down the length of his body in a way that turned Robert rigid. Of course Aaron would have found him attractive, Robert hadn't had a personality worth falling for after all, but receiving confirmation of it was as thrilling as it was comforting.

“Robert's moving into the Mill,” Vic stated proudly. “He's the one that has all the construction going on other there.”

It went against his original plan of simply asking Aaron out, but even in his reformed glory he was still Robert Sugden, and before he'd even registered that the idea had hit him, Robert said, “Well, that won't be for a while yet. The two flats need a lot of re-doing and you know how long it can take to get that sort of stuff done.”

“You're keeping it as two flats?” Diane asked.

“I'm gonna need to make an income somehow, and renting is as good a way as any. Money flows been a bit short since the split.” Which wasn't true in the slightest, he had enough to pay for the scrapyard investment three times over, but they didn't need to know that just yet did they? “And there's only so much I can get done myself.”

“Well, I'm sure Aaron can help out wherever you need it,” Vic said. “And Adam when he gets out.”

_Bingo._

“No, I couldn't ask that of them,” Robert feigned refusal. “They barely know me. Especially since I can't pay them well for it.”

“Oh shush, I would've forced Adam to help out for free either way, and I know Aaron's good at that stuff, aren't ya?” she asked, looking pointedly at Aaron, who had been trying to edge his way out of the room and conversation and now looked like a deer in headlights.

“Wouldn't wanna do summat that Robert doesn't want, would I?” he said. Robert would be lying if he said the instant refusal didn't make him nauseous. 

“Robert's being daft-”

“ _Robert's_ also sat right here.”

“-and isn't thinking straight. It's not like you'll be strangers forever, since Rob will probably be staying here anyway.”

Robert had to bite down on his bottom lip to stop himself from grinning about how well this was going. “Actually I was thinking of staying at the B&B. Val could give me a discount.”

“Well, then you'd really have nothing to pay 'em with! Come on, Rob, at least stay with me instead.” And really, Robert could think of a million other places he'd rather stay; despite his love for his sister. He'd stayed in that box room one too many times.

“Its really no trouble, pet, we have a spare room,” Diane, thankfully, interjected. “I'm sure Chas won't put up that much of a fuss, at least not forever.” In between his eagerness to get back to Emmerdale and all his months of planning, Robert had forgotten about Chas, who, at the moment, was Katie's sidekick and the first person to try and keep Aaron as far away from his as possible.

Mentally, Robert added her to his growing list of issues.

He took a moment to pretend to think about it. “It would be helpful to save some cash, if you're sure Diane? And Aaron, of course.”

“Do what you like, mate, it ain't up to me,” Aaron huffed, walking past them and into the kitchen. “And if you really need it, I suppose I can help out in between shifts at the garage. Haven't got nowt better to do with my time.”

“God, try and be less enthusiastic will ya?” Vic said, but Robert was ecstatic. Aaron had never been one to openly reveal exactly how he was feeling, but he must have peaked his interest in some way, in this small space of time, if he was even agreeing at all. (Aaron _was_ one to tell someone to do one if he really wanted to.)

“If you really mean it, then I've got some stuff coming that I need to get moved into the Mill tomorrow for the builders. The new staircase I want put it and such.”

Aaron shrugged. “Don't see why not.”

Robert let himself grin.

 

***

Chas was even less pleased about Robert staying than he thought she would be.

Vic, himself, and even Aaron eventually, had listened through the door as she recounted the things Robert had done in the past to Diane, arguing her case with that fierce, ferociousness that she'd always had for even the smallest of things.

“Can't he, at the very least, stay at the B&B?” they had heard Chas shout. “If he's so adamant about staying in the village.”

“He's low on cash, Chas, it's not as simple as that,” Diane argued. “I don't understand why it matters so much. He'll be out of here in a month or so.”

“It _matters_ because of what he did to Katie. She already knows he's back, ya know, his arrival at the pub set the village gossip mill running ragged.” Vic had given him a sympathetic look at that. “What kind of friend would I be if I let him stay here? It'll cause us all a lot less agro if he stays somewhere else.”

Honestly, Robert couldn't disagree with her.

“Whatever happened between the two of them happened a very long time ago and I'm sure Robert wants to move past it just as much as she does,” Diane said, and she really had _no idea_. “And he's gone through it these last few months, not just with the split but with his sexuality as well.”

“What, forgotten how his bits work has he?”

“You know that's not what I mean,” Diane said, a lot quieter than before.

The slight change in her voice took him back to a place, momentarily, he thought he had gotten through. Robert had hoped he was past the point of cringing whenever someone else talked about it, but he wasn't. He felt Aaron's eyes on him for the rest of the time they'd stood at the door and tried not to analyse what that could mean.

It had taken Diane a good hour after that to reason with her, make her step back. Robert wished he could be more surprised at her reaction – he hadn't even _done_ anything yet, for God's sake – but he knew the things people must have said about him in his absence, they'd said enough of them to his face the first time around.

Later, after Chas had given in and flung the door open to find them all standing there, giving Robert a look that would have sent lesser men running, and stomped off to the bar, Robert tried to move his things into the spare room with as little conflict as possible; taking his time to make sure no one was downstairs before taking one of his boxes or bags upstairs. He was on his last one when he came face to face with Aaron at the top of the stairs.

“Y'alright?” Robert asked after a second. In all the years he'd known Aaron, and after all the situations they had found themselves in, Robert couldn't think of another time he'd ever felt this awkward and flustered around him. He supposed that was a side effect of thinking about your actions, you worry too much about if you're saying the right thing. 

“Yeah,” Aaron said. “Look, I feel like I should apologise for my mum. She can be a bit full on. Its none of her business, this whole thing with you and Katie.”

Robert shrugged. “I can't really blame her. None of what she said wasn't true.”

Aaron's eyes were bright. “Even the part about not knowing how your bits work?”

An ugly cackle escaped his mouth and his face must have turned bright red. “Maybe not all true, then.”

“You sure?” Aaron grinned.

“Last time I checked, yeah,” Robert said, and before he might've added a sly 'Prove it to ya, if you like?' or something equally as suggestive. But this was about forming something healthy, making a better start and all that. So instead, he said, “And I'm sorry about Vic, if we're apologising for family members. You probably know this better than I do, but she really does love to stick her nose in it.”

“Oh, so I don't have to help out tomorrow, do I?” Aaron asked, eyebrows raised in mock curiosity.

“Too late now, I'm afraid,” Robert joked. “It's part of the mysterious stranger contract: you're now bound for eternity to move my mysterious boxes into my mysterious house.”

Aaron made a noise that was almost close to a laugh, and Robert's face felt numb from how much he was smiling. “I've got a morning shift tomorrow, so I should be free to head round the Mill at about one, if that'll do ya?”

“Sure,” Robert said. “I'll see you tomorrow then.”

“Yeah, see ya.” Aaron scratched the back of his head, moving to the side to let Robert past.

Robert pretended not to feel Aaron watching him walk to his room, but as soon as he closed his door he dropped the bag he was holding, sinking back against the door, breathing deeply.

It was only day one done out of thousands, but he couldn't help but be proud of what he had accomplished already.

He was out to his family and Aaron didn't hate him. That felt like as good a start as any.

With a bright green pen, Robert crossed the day off in the planner before getting himself ready for bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you've probably noticed, I've put this fic down as having 18 chapters. I've planned them all, but already I think I'm gonna surpass that since parts of this chapter was supposed to go with the first one, but I worried about making chapters too long. Also, in a couple of chapters we're gonna start jumping forward with the time (so you don't get alarmed when its suddenly been months since the last chapter.)


	3. Boy problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert resorts to old methods.

Aaron was late.

It was only 1:15, not late enough to call out a search party, but today was the day Ross Barton was going to steal someone's car and Robert didn't want to think about what could happen to Aaron if they stole from the wrong person. Not everyone enjoyed blackmail as much as Robert did – _had –_ and keeping Aaron far away from all that was all that mattered, even if it did piss Ross off.

Luckily, not five minutes later, Aaron came jogging towards the Mill, an apologetic look on his face. “Sorry, mate,” he panted. “Turns out me mum didn't realise I was helping ya today and had a few things to say about it.”

There were many things that Robert Sugden knew about Aaron Dingle: how he liked his tea in the morning, where he hides his hair gel after Robert threatens to throw it out, what makes him angry. He also knew what Aaron looked like when he lied – his blue eyes widened and he fiddled with something, usually his hair or wedding ring – and this was an Aaron Dingle ( _Livesy)_ that was lying to him. 

“If it's causing trouble then you really don't have to,” Robert said, just to see how he would react.

“I'm already here, aren't I, so we might as well,” Aaron said, placing his hands on his hips; allowing Robert to look at him properly.

There was never a time where Aaron had ever been unattractive, but seeing him now did wonders for Robert's memory; reminding him why he had been so obsessed with Aaron before the affair, why he had craved him so much.

He had clearly been stopped by Chas (or more likely someone else) on his way back from the garage because he was still in his overalls, tied around his waist, with a black t-shirt on that drew Robert's eyes across his chest and to the muscle in his arms.

Realising he was being less than subtle in how he was staring, he said, “I can wait another few minutes if you want to get changed.”

“Nah, its heavy lifting innit? Don't wanna be wearing something nice.” Aaron looked Robert over the same way he had the day before, causing Robert's ego to flare, proud in how he was dressed. He'd spent a while looking over the clothes he had, trying his best to look like the Robert-from-now, trying to look like the Robert Aaron had fallen for. After deliberation, he'd decided on his brown leather jacket (which _God_ had he missed) covering a white button up shirt and his blue jeans. Looking in the mirror that morning had been like staring a ghost in the face, confronted with his old hair style and baby-like features. It had taken him longer to talk himself out of waxing his hair than it had to choose his clothes.

Some things would have to wait.

“Well then I suppose we can get going,” Robert said, moving towards his Porsche. “I don't want to get caught up in after-work traffic since this will probably take more than one trip.”

“Get going? I thought we were just moving some boxes?” Aaron asked.

“To do that we've got to actually go and get them first,” Robert said. Maybe he should've mentioned this the day before, but that might've increased the likelihood of Aaron saying no and he needed Aaron out of the village and away from Ross. “I ordered a lot of this last month and got it placed in storage, about a thirty-minute drive from the village.”

“Oh.” Aaron worried his bottom lip and ran a hand through his hair, averting his eyes from Robert's.

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” Aaron said, then, with more certainty, “No, it's fine. Lets just go.”

Aaron's phone rang three times in the first ten minutes of the drive. It probably would've been more if he hadn't turned his phone off, throwing it carelessly behind him onto the back seat and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Don't ask.”

“Who said I was going to?” Robert could very easily guess.

Aaron grunted. “You just seem the type to like a nose.”

“Just cause Vic's my sister, doesn't mean we're the same person,” Robert laughed, trying to seem offended. “We're actually not really that similar at all.”

“What about you and Andy?”

Robert tensed, hands tightening on the steering wheel. Diane had gone on at him before he'd left the Woolpack about going to see him – and it wasn't that Robert didn't want to see him, he really did, more so than he thought he would've done – but there was only so much that he could pretend. No matter how Robert tried to paint himself, tried to be a better person, that didn't change the fact that things were about to happen that were going to _hurt_. To lie to their faces, to pretend to be happy that they were using his Dad's wedding ring, to not snap whenever Katie inevitably made a comment. It just wasn't going to happen yet.

“Sorry,” Aaron said quickly. “Didn't think.”

“It's fine,” but it wasn't, not really, “Me and Andy have never been similar either.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Aaron nod, seemingly deciding not to push it and for that he was thankful. It was quiet in the car for a few minutes, only the sound of the engine running and other nearby cars, until, softly, Aaron said, “I know its none of my business, but coming out in the way you've done-” he paused for a moment, like he was trying to find the right words to use. “I just wanted to say that I think its brave of you.”

Robert snorted. “So brave it took me twenty-eight years to do it.”

“Think that's what makes it brave. It was bad enough for me at eighteen, all those pent up feelings, couldn't imagine carrying that around for another ten.” And Robert had to try and breathe deeply to keep himself from feeling the onslaught of emotions as they passed through him. Because they'd never really done this, apart from that time in the woods before the crash, talked about what it must have been like for Robert to come out. Not that he'd deserved to have that discussion, he'd never acted like you were supposed to before you came out – all scared and self-accepting – he, in short, had just been an asshole. The fact that they could do this now, though, after so little time, it had to mean _something_. “Just what I think, anyway.”

He said, “Thanks,” when really all he wanted to say was 'I don't deserve this.'

Beside him Aaron shrugged, scratching his chin and looking out the window, uncomfortable after talking for so long. Robert almost went to put a hand on Aaron's leg, in the way they usually did when they were on a drive together, but stopped himself. He was struck suddenly with longing, the kind that was almost painful; where you could feel it in your stomach. The same type he'd felt on bad nights during the past month, when he would wake up and forget where he was, when he was, and assume Aaron had gone to the bathroom, or needed a drink , or, worse, was still in prison. Like a boot to the face he'd remember all too soon. What was left with the memories was a _loneliness_ – one that he knew he'd always feel now, deep down. Robert blinked rapidly, focusing back on the road.

The two of them stayed silent for the rest of the trip.

The items that Robert had accumulated for the Mill were stored in a small, rented garage block, the closest one to Emmerdale he could find. He'd realised quickly that he couldn't keep a new door in a hotel room and had found this just as quickly.

“God, no wonder you're broke,” Aaron said when Robert opened the door to the sight of countless boxes crammed against each other. What had originally been bought in the space of months had been purchased practically overnight, except for items like their sofa (which turned out to not have even been designed yet) and the strange things Aaron had liked to litter their shelves with; having no clue where to begin looking for them and, frankly, not wanting to. (He wanted to save some of the buying for Aaron to experience anyway.) Robert had been insistent that he needed to buy what he could as soon as possible, so no time was wasted.

“How much of this do you need to bring back?” Aaron asked. None of it was exactly _needed_ , but there was no harm in moving some now.

“Not much,” Robert replied. “Here, help me with this.”

Together they managed to cram three boxes into the Porsche's small boot, then another two in the back seat before sharing a more lively ride back to the village – even if all they talked about was work at the garage.

All in all, it seemed to be the start of another good day.

Until they pulled up outside of the Mill.

Andy and Katie were stood outside, just looking down the drive, as Katie seemed to shout something. They both turned around when they heard the car.

“Do ya want me to tell them to go, or?” Aaron asked, but Robert could hardly hear him. Katie looked the same as she always had, blonde hair waving in the wind and blue eyes shining (Robert had always loved blue eyes) in a way that was so _alive_ , so different to the vacant way they'd stared up at him from the barn floor.

“Robert?” Aaron tried again, but Robert already had a hand on the car door, stepping outside.

“Didn't think I'd ever see you in Emmerdale again,” Andy said once Robert had stopped walking towards them, keeping a good metre away.

“Neither did I.” Because he hadn't, back then, hadn't dreamed of it. “But things change.”

“Like your sexuality?” Katie called. “Or is that just one of your games?”

Andy nudged Katie like Vic had to Diane – they were the siblings that were similar – but Katie didn't stop. “Or have you run out of women to mess around?”

“I don't want trouble,” Robert tried. “I know you don't like me, and I know I deserve that along with anything you might want to say to me, but that doesn't mean we have to argue with each other. I'm happy to just get on with my life if you are.”

That seemed to satisfy Andy. He nodded at him before letting his shoulder's drop, like he had been preparing for a fight. Robert nodded back at him.

But Katie had other ideas.

She came charging towards him with the energy of an elephant in a stampede, not stopping until the two of them were nose to nose, unflinching. “I don't know why you're back,” she said. “Or what you're planning. But whatever it is, it's not gonna work.”

Andy pulled on her arm, a pleading look on his face. “ _Katie_ -”

“No! Because people like you don't change Robert, they adapt themselves, make sure they look all nice on the outside, but inside? You're still scum. I bet your ex-fiancée can vouch for that.”

Just like that, everything he tried to hold together fell apart and all that was left was the memory of his Dad towering over him, telling him he wasn't, and could never be, good enough. Robert could hardly breathe, let alone acknowledge that Aaron was stood somewhere behind them and that they were in the middle of the street. There was no hindsight in the world that could stop him now. “You might want to be careful, Katie,” he said, voice as low and menacing as he could make it. “Or people might start to wonder why you're so obsessed with me.”

“As if I could care less about you,” she sneered.

“Oh yeah?” He pressed his face close to hers, mouth against her ear. “Because if you're right and people like me never change, then people like you don't change either. You're just the same old Katie: the useless and pathetic _Village Bike_.”

Andy came for him, pushing him right back against the Porsche; the force of it leaving him winded.

He probably would've punched him if Aaron had been as quick as he had, pulling Andy off him and pushing him away. “Don't you _dare_ talk about her like that!”

“Did you miss that whole conversation or did that all just happen in my head?” Robert said, unable to stop now he was started.

Katie went to say something but Aaron gave her a look and she shut her mouth, taking Andy by the hand. “Come on, he's not worth it.”

Robert would've laughed, maybe called out to them to really try and get under their skin, but Aaron turned towards him and suddenly he remembered where he was, that this wasn't the him from 2014 and he couldn't just act like this anymore.

The two of them didn't say anything for a while. Not until Andy and Katie had completely vanished from sight did Aaron turn to him, eyebrow cocked.

“Don't ask,” Robert said. The only thing that could make this worse was Aaron being mad at him, especially an Aaron that had no reason to like him yet, let alone see past how he had reacted.

“Who said I was going to?” Aaron said, a hint of a smile on his lips.

Robert would've scoffed, but.

Wait.

_A hint of a smile on his lips._

“What, not gonna give me a lecture?”

Aaron shrugged. “Not your mother, am I? And you told her you were gonna play nice if she did, not your fault she didn't listen.”

Robert could only stare.

Aaron seemed to get uncomfortable again. “Thought we were moving these boxes?”

“Uh, right, yeah.” Robert pushed himself off of the car and straightened his shirt back up. “Yeah, we'll start with the boot.”

They were left with the two in the back seat. Robert gave Aaron his first, instructing him to leave it with the rest of them, and was stopped dead in his tracks when he reached for the other box.

Aaron's phone must have fallen on the floor during the drive. It was undamaged, but still turned off. He looked over his shoulder, where Aaron was only just walking through the front door of the Mill. Without thinking, Robert turned the phone on; urging it to be quick as he kept a close eye on the door. The home screen flashed on, with only this glaring on the screen:

 

_(12) Missed calls – Ross._

_(5) Missed calls – Charity_

 

It seemed this wasn't over yet.

Robert saw the front door open and he turned the phone back off, grabbing the remaining box.

“What's taken ya so long?” Aaron asked, coming up behind him.

“Found your phone on the floor, it was stuffed under the front seat,” Robert only half-lied, passing it to him. “And, I know Vic said I shouldn't pay ya, but I think today was a bit more than you bargained for-”

“Understatement, mate. I'll accept £100 in cash for my troubles.”

Robert realised that Aaron was joking, which, well, he had no clue what to make of this early – Aaron being so _nice_ to him.

“I was actually thinking more along the lines of me buying you a pint.”

Aaron looked like he was thinking about it. “Guess that'll work too. You should hope for your sake that it's not my mum behind the bar.”

And despite Andy and Katie and everything in between, Robert laughed.

 

***

The rest of the week had been a disappointment, to say the least.

Honestly, Robert didn't know what he had been expecting without the drama of the home farm robbery or without a job to occupy him with. Robert was stuck in a limbo, trying his best to avoid both Andy and Katie as well as Chas (which was easier said than done, since they shared a living space) and making any kind of progress with Aaron that he could. This left Robert either hanging out with Vic while she was working or at the Mill, where time with Aaron was given to him in short spurts, Aaron either not having much time to spend there in the first place or just wanting to get on with the work, so that any advances Robert attempted to make fell flat on their faces.

It hadn't helped that Aaron had had to leave quickly into their drink at the pub after he had taken one, panicked look at his phone. Since then, finding time to see him outside of work at the Mill was almost impossible, Aaron always being occupied with something else. Despite Aaron seeming to like him, it was as if he barely noticed his presence; wasn't as affected by Robert being in a room as he had been the first time around.

This left Robert stewing over a pint at midday in the corner of the pub, wondering: where was he going wrong?

“You know you're supposed to drink the pint, not stare at it until it disappears.” Val interrupted his thoughts, standing over him, a hand on her hip and another clutching her handbag, smiling smugly.

It took him a second to compose himself, still not completely over the shock of seeing her alive.

“Maybe that's my superpower. Osmosis.”

“Well, whatever that word means you're clearly not very good at it,” she laughed, taking the seat opposite him.

“Story of my life, that,” Robert said as he began to draw circles in the glass, not really sure why he bought the pint at all.

“Oh, Robert, please don't tell me that's a _pity_ drink.”

“I don't do pity,” Robert reassured her. “Self-loathing, though? That's got me written all over it.”

Val hummed. “What have you done now?”

“It's not what I've _done,_ it's more like what I haven't.” Robert didn't particularly want to talk about this. “It's fine, though, I'll figure it out. Aren't you meeting someone? Diane?”

“Eric, he'll be here in a few minutes. Just enough time for me to be an agony aunt for my poor, downtrodden step-nephew.” She looked at him expectantly and Robert was struck again by how incredibly unfair it was, what might happen to her, and how she was the last person in the world that deserved to die like that. “Come on, out with it!”

“You don't want to hear about my boy problems.”

“ _Boy_ problems?” Val leaned forward, even more interested than before. “Oh, now you have to tell me.” 

“It's not even all that interesting, I mean, we're not even together-”

“Which I'm assuming is the issue?” she asked, all too perceptive. “Has he rejected you, then?”

Both offended and insulted, Robert spluttered, “ _No_ , of course not!”

“Then you think he will?”

“No! I mean – he might, but...” He sighed, relenting. “I don't know.”

“So why the uncertainty?”

“We've had something in the past,” Robert started. “Me and this guy. But it wasn't anything proper, you know, we've never really dated before. And I've been trying to make myself seem more than that, more than some guy that wants something casual, but it's like something's not clicking on his end,” he sighed, resting his head against the wall behind him. “Feels like he doesn't want me.”

“Well, he must have liked you enough if he decided to sleep with ya,” Val laughed. “Unless he's that sort?”

“Oh, no,” Robert said. “He has standards.”

“Then what's changed from then to now?” she asked, and Robert couldn't exactly explain that he was doing this all over again; that Aaron knew nothing of what Robert had been like. But still, he thought about it.

“I suppose I'm being nicer now,” Robert said. “Trying to act more like a friend to him, since we've never really been like that with each other.”

Just then Eric walked through the front door, waving at Val when he spotted her.

“Robert, I'm going to leave you with one thing to think about: is there any possibility that you're being _too_ nice?”

It was-

No.

It couldn't be, could it? Yes, Robert hadn't been the nicest when they'd originally met, but Robert had always assumed that Aaron had experienced falling in love – no, that he'd been fucked to love – in the same way that Robert had: a fast paced, unexpected climax of emotion that he'd never really understood. There was no way that Aaron had enjoyed parts of Robert's devilish ways, let alone been attracted to them.

Could there?

Robert thought of the interaction with Katie, how Aaron had raised his eyebrow at him, smiled at him, _defended_ him.

Leaving his pint untouched, Robert swiftly exited the pub and headed towards the garage, not entirely sure what he expected to find there.

 

***

The first thing that struck him as strange was the front door being completely closed. As far as he knew Aaron was supposed to be working, or at the very least that the garage was supposed to be open. The second was the muffled sound of raised voices.

Robert, after making sure the street behind him was empty, placed his head close to the door and listened in.

“I don't care what Charity's told ya,” a gruff, male voice, _Aaron_ , said. “You can't keep this here.”

“It'll be a day, two tops.” Another voice, most definitely Ross sounding, followed. “And it's not like anyone's gonna question why a car is in a bloody garage, are they!”

“I think Cain might.”

“You just tell him it's a customers car.”

“And if the police come knocking?”

“You don't know they will.”

“They bloody well might! I can't afford to be caught with this, not on my suspended sentence,” Aaron argued, raising alarm bells in Robert's mind. “But you already know that. Counting on it, even.”

Everything went quiet.

In a moment of panic, Robert took out his phone, opened the camera and pressed record, using his other hand to make sure the door was unlocked.

“Here's what going to happen,” came Ross' voice. “You're going to keep the car here. You're going to keep it here for as long as I tell you to. While it's here, me and you are gonna strip it for parts and when we're done, I'll finally leave you alone. How's that sound?”

Before Aaron could respond, Robert opened the door and zoomed the camera right onto Ross' face before ending the video. “Ya know,” Robert said as they stared at him, stunned. “If you're gonna have a shouting match about something you probably shouldn't be doing, you might want to consider locking the door.”

“What the hell do you want, Sugden?” Ross barked. Aaron just stared.

Robert smiled and leant against the wall with his legs crossed, making himself comfortable. “Right now? Nothing. But you _are_ going to owe me, obviously, considering I'm not going to the police with this video.” He waved his phone in the air for emphasis. “That wouldn't be good for either of you, I imagine.”

“Why?” Aaron asked, probably trying to connect the Robert he'd known for the past week with the one before him now.

Robert thought fast. “I'm broke. Could use a few favours coming my way.”

“Bullshit.” Ross took a step towards him with his chin raised, trying to look confident. “There's no way you'd actually go to the police. And if you did I'd say you were blackmailing us.”

“Oh, Ross, I think you should be the one looking afraid of the police finding out about using blackmail. Cause you'll find it almost looks like you were threatening Aaron in my video.” He looked at him then, trying to convey with a look that that this was for him. Aaron's eyes widened and his lips parted in realisation – he knew. “And yes, Aaron's on a suspended sentence, but it's not his face you can see in the video. Can't hear anyone say his name, either. Doesn't look all that good for you, does it?”

Ross took that information in, looking much less sure of himself now. “So what do you want, then?”

“Like I said, nothing yet. But it wouldn't go amiss if you were to move that car out of here and leave Aaron alone for the foreseeable future.”

He looked like he wanted to question it, ask why, but decided not to. “I'll get it out of here by tonight.”

“Good,” he said. “Now get out of here.”

Taking one last look at Aaron, Ross scrambled out of the door, leaving Aaron and Robert alone in the garage.

Robert chuckled, “Is this where you do all your naughty business, dirty little grease monkey-”

“What the hell was that?” Aaron asked, less than impressed. “How did you even know we were in here?”

“I didn't,” Robert answered truthfully. “I thought it was a bit suss that the garage was closed, so I came over to take a look and, frankly, you should be glad I did.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“I'm already helping ya out, you don't need to blackmail anyone.” Aaron prowled into his space, crowding him against the wall. “So why?”

Every hair on the back of his neck was stood to attention as his stomach did backflips. This was the closest the two of them had gotten to each other, and Robert could feel his breath on his face and the warmth radiating off of him so profoundly it was as if he could loose himself in it; focus only on the brightness of Aaron's eyes for the rest of his life. Robert knew that he had missed him, it had been hard to ignore the velocity of how much at times, but now he felt it as physically as he had that day in the back room as it shook him to his core.

“Maybe I just want to look out for ya,” he barely whispered, voice hoarse and full of everything his body was trying to let out.

A brief look of confusion passed Aaron's eyes, but then he was getting impossibly closer, pushing against him; almost daring him to do something about it.

“Yeah?” Aaron asked.

Robert could only nod.

Blue eyes looked down at his lips like they were making a decision, but alarm shot through him like static and suddenly all he could think about was what the date was, how soon it was.

Some things he wanted to remain sacred.

He darted out of Aaron's space and made a break for the door, heart hammering. It must have looked bad, real bad, but he'd run away from Aaron in this state before.

Before he turned the corner towards the Woolpack he looked behind his shoulder to see Aaron stood outside the garage, visibly shaken as he watched him leave.

Now that was more like it.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just thought I'd drop in here to let you know the next chapter is called 'December 4th'...


	4. December 4th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert and Aaron get closer as December 4th grows nearer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A-levels have been killing me so I'm sorry this took so long, especially for such a short chapter! Hopefully I can write more over the weekend.  
> As always, thank you so much for reading.

No one ever really appreciated the parts of the country side that were like this: sidebars of a long, winding road, the gateway to the more exciting and known rural places, the kind of view you'd never see printed in a travel guide or raved about online.

Robert appreciated it now. Hardly any cars had passed by, so it was easy to pretend that there was no one for miles, only him, the Porsche and the December wind rustling the trees. There hadn't been time to think about nature the last time. In fact, Robert hadn't taken notice of where he had been at all. Back then there had only been his trembling hands dialling Aaron's number and the white noise as he had waited for him, as if time had malfunctioned between when he put his phone down and the arrival of the pick-up truck.

It was perfect, he realised, where he had chosen – if it could really be called _chosen_. Robert liked to think so; that the same force that had sent him back in time had stopped his Audi in this particular layby.

He'd thought a lot about forces and fate since August. Thought about it until it had made his stomach churn and his eye's red. Eventually, he'd decided that it wasn't worth thinking about. He was here, he was in control. Everything else was background music.

Like then, he had his phone in his hand and a finger hovering over the call button. The adrenaline he'd felt before was still there, as was the uncertainty. It didn't matter how much he had done over the past week, Robert didn't think he could ever go into this with full confidence.

He would just have to do it anyway.

 

***

_December 3 rd 2014: Family dinner. Aaron asks me out for drinks. I reject him._

Robert had glared at the planner that morning, as if doing so would make what was written on the date disappear; freeing him from having to talk to Andy. Diane and Vic had cornered him the day before and the only reason he agreed was because he knew where it would lead. He and Andy had ignored each other for the most part since the run in at the Mill, apart from the few times they had crossed paths in the pub or in the street. Both of them had been pleasant enough during those times – except for the one instance Katie had been with him and had scowled in Robert's face before tugging Andy along.

It was probably a blessing that Katie wouldn't be at the dinner.

Regardless of the cold atmosphere between Robert and his brother, everything else had been moving at high speed, with the Mill being estimated to be finished by late January and Chas now being able to stand in a room with him in for more than a few minutes before walking out. He had even almost managed to integrate himself into the Village to the point where no one out of the obvious disliked him. Things were really and truly _good._

Where he was at now with Aaron, however, was almost rapturous.

It was like a game of cat and mouse: the two of them pretending not to notice how the other stared at them; how Aaron would circle him when they were alone together, putting a hand on his arm when they were close, urging Robert to do something about how they were both feeling. Robert had almost given up waiting for the 4th after they'd finally been able to have their drink together at the pub, where Aaron had sat right next to him, their thighs firmly pressing together, as Aaron had spoken to him lowly and softly, making him dizzy before he'd started his second drink.

He'd excused himself after a few rounds too many, when they had gotten impossibly closer and Robert had an arm around Aaron's chair, feeling both his pants get tighter and Chas watching them from behind the bar.

He hadn't failed to notice Aaron's disappointment when he'd said he was going upstairs. Hadn't missed it all the times he had left it with nothing happening. Aaron was a no nonsense type of person and he could only thank fate that the 4th was tomorrow.

“So I was thinking the three of us should socialize a bit more,” Vic said as they were sat around the table in the back room. “Maybe go out on Friday, have some drinks?”

“Oh, yeah that sounds lovely Vic,” Andy replied. Robert prepared himself for the blow. “But I'm sure Robert can't make it. It would mess up his plan of avoiding me.”

Robert scoffed, “I would have to care to make an effort to avoid you.”

“What have I said about you two getting on!” Diane exclaimed. “I'm strictly neutral between you two boys, as you well know. I'd never pick sides, but this needs to be out in the open!”

There were some things that even now Robert was angry about, redemption or not. “Neutral? Give me a break, he's been the golden boy since day one. It's been the same story all our lives.”

“That's not fair,” Vic said, and within everything he had forgotten how much Vic could go against him sometimes.

“You've just gotten out of an engagement and Andy's getting married soon. If this isn't the time to grow up and put your differences behind ya, I don't know when will be,” Diane said.

Luckily, Aaron chose now to make his entrance.

“Sorry, I didn't realise you were in here.” The two of them made eye contact for a second and Robert felt his body tense, just as it had the day this had really happened.

“No, it's alright Aaron, come in.” Diane waved him over. “There's plenty of food, get yourself a plate.”

“I'm sure he wouldn't want to intrude,” Robert said as if he were reading lines from a script, remembering this in terrifying detail. “This being a family meal, and all.”

Aaron narrowed his eye's at him and closed the door forcefully, accepting the challenge Robert was throwing at him. “A spot of home cooking would be great, actually, if that's alright.”

He could feel how close he was as he passed his chair, heading towards the kitchen to get a plate, like a warmth passing down his spine. Their eye's met again when Robert looked briefly over his shoulder, and he knew he had to make his exit.

He dropped his cutlery and exaggerated a sigh. “It was a nice thought Diane, but it's not really working is it. Thanks for a lovely meal.” He rose from the chair, muttering, “I've got a house to prepare.”

Aaron watched him as he left.

 

***

Robert didn't know how long he had been sat in his Porsche, which he had conveniently placed right outside the Woolpack before heading in for dinner. As much as he had been dreading sitting down with his family, this was one of the moments he was waiting for. A moment where he could choose differently. It gave him the same rush that he'd had the last time he had sat like this outside the pub, like this was a turning point.

When Aaron eventually came outside, he quickly moved his eye's away from the door; acting as if he hadn't been eagerly watching ever since he'd unlocked his car.

Aaron spotted him fast, stopping and looking back before walking over to Robert.

“Sorry for crashing your dinner,” he apologised, any kind of attitude he may have had in there long gone now.

“Wasn't exactly going well before you arrived.”

“Always wanted a brother before I met you two,” he joked, hands shoved in his pockets and shuffling from foot to foot. An awkwardness passed between them as Aaron tried to formulate what he wanted to say and Robert waited for him. “Listen, um, I'm gonna go into town later for a beer.”

“Yeah?” Robert prompted, well and truly excited now.

“Join me if you want?”

Robert nodded vigorously. “Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that.”

They met up again two hours later back outside the Woolpack, where Aaron had already called them a taxi. He internally allowed himself to relax when he saw Aaron hadn't changed his clothes, after he'd spent a good thirty minutes convincing himself he didn't need to – it wasn't a _date_ Robert, for God's sake – and pulled himself together, bringing the Robert Sugden swagger out in full force as he made a point of looking confident as he walked towards him.

“You ready to go?” Aaron looked him up and down, something he was ( thankfully) doing a lot of recently, taking note of how Robert was presenting himself. Robert nodded and they piled in the taxi, Aaron grunting a blunt direction of “Bar West in Hotten” to the driver.

Of course he'd figured this was where they'd be going, but it didn't stop the momentary panic as he wondered how he should act when they got there. As far as Aaron knew he was recently out, it wouldn't be bizarre for him to be slightly uncomfortable, but he also had never acted ashamed of it, like he felt it was something he needed to hide, not in the extreme way he had before.

What made it worse was that he genuinely didn't know how being in a gay bar would make him feel. He hadn't been in one since Aaron had brought him to Bar West before, hadn't wanted to. He was going into this blind.

Aaron paid the driver despite Robert insisting and quickly he was hit with the smell of alcohol and sweat. Last time it had felt like men were crawling the place, all of them naked and pressed together and _watching him_ , like they knew. Now, there had to have been maybe ten people in there and three of them women, who were sat in a corner with a nervous looking man that was seemingly making it his mission to not look at any other man, and was slightly overdressed for a bar like this.

Because that's all it was. Just a bar.

He let out a sigh of relief – he was going to be fine.

Robert looked at the man again while he and Aaron sat down, feeling both sympathetic and a sort of kinship. He could imagine what he was feeling.

“Seen something you like?” came an annoyed sounding Aaron, piercing his thoughts.

“No,” Robert said quickly, realising what he meant. “No, I just … noticed he seems nervous.”

Aaron took a brief look over. “Probably his first time.”

“Probably,” Robert agreed.

“And yours too?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Yeah, but I'm fine.”

“I wasn't,” Aaron said. “The first time I came here, I wasn't fine at all.”

“You and this place go back, do you?” Robert joked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah, actually. Met my first boyfriend here 'n all.” Sadness swept over him as clear as day and all Robert wanted to do was stop it, touch him, anything. He wanted to rewrite anything that had ever made Aaron feel bad, run his hands over the cracks until they were smooth again, even if those things included himself. Maybe he couldn't make it perfect, but he would try his best.

“I wished I'd had that sometimes,” he admitted. “Being able to come to places like this when I was younger, having a first boyfriend when you're supposed to have a first boyfriend. I envy you.”

He screwed up his face at that. “Sure Vic's already told you that it wasn't all roses and sunshine.”

“Like I'm sure she's told you that I was less than great to my fiancée.”

“Not really. She said you've slept with blokes.”

“I have. Never dated one, though.” He presented it to Aaron like an offering, dressed like a question. _Can you change that? “_ You got the taxi, so I'll get the drinks?”

It was the right thing to say. Any trace of sadness left Aaron alone and he seemed to relax a little.

“Go on then.”

 

***

Things escalated from there.

Where the booze made Robert hyper, leaning into Aaron's space and spilling his drink all over himself, it made Aaron calm, laid back in his chair and face bright pink as he smiled at Robert like a school boy with a crush.

They'd had drinks together before, but this was different. Here there was no Chas surveying them and no chance of Vic trying to stick her nose in it, completely village free. There were no rules here, and the knowledge of it was making Robert careless.

Aaron heavy handedly placed their fourth round of beer on the table, the contents of the pint sloshing a little over the side of the glass. Instead of sitting in the chair opposite Robert, he slung it round so they were side by side, so the full length of their bodies were touching.

For some reason, their proximity was hilarious to his intoxicated brain and he laughed, even while Aaron kicked him under the table and his belly began to ache.

“What's so funny, then?” Aaron slurred, leaning right into Robert's space.

“You. Me. All this.” Robert gestured wildly around the whole bar.

“Think I'm funny do ya?” Aaron was doing it again – joking with him like they were friends.

Robert had never been more in love with him. “I do,” he said, completely in awe. “You're the funniest person I know.”

Aaron snorted, taking a sip of his drink. “You barely know me.”

“But I want to,” Robert said, eagerly placing a hand on Aaron's thigh, breathing him in. “I really want to know ya, Aaron.”

Despite being blown wide from the alcohol, his eyes focused on him intently. Robert held his breath, he'd spoken too soon, that was too much for even a drunk to say, _he'd messed up, he'd messed up, he'd messed up._

But the corner of Aaron's mouth pulled upwards and suddenly Aaron was nodding timidly, his face well and truly red now, looking the softest Robert had ever seen him. “I want to know ya too.”

The two of them were in each other's orbit now, the rest of the bar lost to them both. Slowly, Aaron's eyes worked their way across Robert's face until they landed on his mouth and he couldn't help but do the same, struck dumb as Aaron sucked on his bottom lip, overwhelmed with the sudden _want_ that was pounding in his stomach and sending shock waves through his body.

But even drunk he could remember what day it was; he'd come too far to give in now.

“I-I,” he pulled back, breaking the spell, “I need to go to the bog.”

Aaron blinked a couple times, looking confused. “Right,” he said slowly.

“I'll be right back,” he promised before walking across the bar, praying that no one was seeing the state he was in.

The bogs stank, and he might have started mentally criticising the low lighting and grungy décor if he wasn't immediately thrown against the wall.

Just as quickly a leg was placed between his thighs and hands onto his waist – _Aaron._ He'd followed him in here, must have assumed that's what Robert had meant. He put his mouth against Robert's ear, his stubble pricking rough and heavy against his cheek, and headily whispered, “Tell me what you want, Rob.”

Like a caged animal he let out a whine, this was _unfair._ “Aaron,” he moaned.

“C'mon,” he urged, pushing their hips together. “Anything you want, I'll give you anything.”

With laboured breaths, he took hold of Aaron's head, pulling it away from his neck, opting to press their foreheads together instead. “Aaron,” he started. “Tomorrow. Just wait until tomorrow. I promise tomorrow is when it'll happen.”

“Why?” Aaron tried to pull away from him, but Robert held on tight. “Is it cause you're scared? Cause I can help ya, I can-”

“It's not,” he interrupted. “We're both really drunk, Aaron, is this how you want it to be?”

Although he was still pouting, Aaron said, “No,” sighing as he moved a hand from Robert's waist to run over his face.

“Tomorrow. Just wait until tomorrow.”

 

***

The pick-up truck pulled up to the layby in what felt like slow motion. When Aaron slammed the door shut Robert felt it in his chest, where his heart was beating louder than any door could be, and slowly got out of his Porsche too.

“I'm not gonna lie,” Aaron said, looking firmly at the car and not at Robert. “When you said wait until tomorrow, this wasn't what I thought you meant.”

Last night Robert had been quick to escape Aaron when they had got back to the Woolpack, then had made sure to be up and out of the pub before the other man had a chance to wake up. He had wanted this to be the first time they spoke today, before Aaron could corner him on his promise of 'tomorrow' and force him to dig himself into a deeper hole. He knew how this looked.

“Would you believe me if I said I had something I needed to do?” Robert asked, but Aaron ignored him and walked towards the front of the car and opened the hood.

“What's wrong with it then?”

“You know nothings wrong with it.” Aaron stood still for a moment before shutting the hood with the same energy he had closed the car door, turning towards him with his arms crossed.

“I don't get what you want from me, Robert,” he said. Robert went to speak, but Aaron held a hand up. “Before you tell me that I do, or that you're sorry, you're gonna listen to me. Every time we've gotten close to summat happening you've shut me down. And I get you've just come out and that it's scary, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to mess me around!”

“I'm not messing you around.” He tried to touch him, but Aaron stepped back. “Aaron, I'm _not_.”

Aaron scoffed. “Yeah, well, it doesn't feel like it.”

He went to move back to the truck, but Robert blocked his path. “You're right,” he said quickly, panicking now. “I haven't been honest with ya. But I meant it last night when I said I wanted to know ya, and I meant it in the garage when I said I want to look out for ya. And a lot of that is because I'm new to this, to dating men. I don't know what I'm doing half the time.” Robert moved towards him and this time Aaron didn't move away. “But what I did know was that I wanted to take my time with this. I also knew I didn't want you and me to start whatever this is in some stingy bar in Hotten.”

Blue eyes rolled back and the same half-smile from the night before briefly appeared. “Bar west isn't stingy.”

Robert smiled – he'd got him. “I'm ready to give this a go.”

“You sound confident,” Aaron said. “What makes you think that's what I want?”

“Because we knew why we're both still here.”

And Robert couldn't stop himself anymore, taking Aaron's face in both hands and kissing him with everything he had; putting the full force of the longing he'd felt over the past few weeks into it.

Aaron froze for a second, but quickly responded, holding tightly onto Robert's leather jacket and opening his mouth just enough that Robert could suck on his bottom lip, making Aaron moan into him, the vibrations of it moving through the two of them, connecting them.

This was it, he realized as he moved his hand to cup the back of Aaron's head. _This_ was the turning point.

All the while they kissed Robert stayed grinning, even as Aaron started gripping him tighter and guiding him towards the pick-up truck, opening the door and pushing Robert onto his back.

Both of their mouths were shining with spit when Aaron did pull back, placing a questioning hand on Robert's belt.

“You wanna?” he gasped, panting hard, not moving his face any more than a few centimetres from Robert's.

“God, yes.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert still has issues to get through. Aaron helps him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a long mess of Robert trying to deal with his emotions - my favourite kind of Robert.  
> I'm thinking I'm gonna be updating every Thursday/Friday because those are the most convenient days of my week.
> 
> And happy international woman's day everyone!

Robert woke up to the feeling of Aaron's body sprawled on top of his own, the spikes of his beard indenting themselves into the skin of his chest as the rest of his body ached pleasantly. The night before Aaron had only hastily shut the blinds, eager to get back to bed – back to _Robert_ – so light streamed steadily into the room, the sun having long since risen.

After the events at the layby they had separated in their individual cars. When they had finished all they had been able to do was smile dumbly at each other with the knowledge that the two of them were now intertwined, a something that hadn't been labelled yet but was undoubtedly present, that made them having to say goodbye that more bittersweet.

Robert had waited for the pick-up truck to pull away before throwing his whole body into laughter, the relief and joy at what he'd just done making him loopy. The good mood had lasted the rest of the day, even when some random had run a red light on the drive back and almost made him crash. All he could think of in that moment is that he would've died happy.

Aaron had been absent since then until that night, when Robert was exiting the bathroom and he ambushed him, taking him by the hand and dragging him to his room, locking the door behind them.

Even now that happiness was still there, like a flutter inside his chest. The state of his body was disgusting and he desperately needed a piss, but he could easily forget it all if it meant he could lay like this with Aaron forever. He'd missed him, missed him so much it had hurt, and now he could almost pretend that none of the heartache had been real, that this was a kinder morning from a kinder summer and any minute now Liv would start screaming about needing money for the bus.

Almost.

Legs started stretching where they were wrapped around Robert's and Aaron groaned, tilting his head up to look at Robert, blushing when he saw he was already awake.

“You been staring at me?” Aaron accused, but he was smiling freely, his voice rough from sleep.

“A little,” Robert admitted, smiling in turn. “Didn't wanna wake ya.”

“I wouldn't have minded, we could've had some more fun. Doubt we're gonna get that now.” Aaron pushed himself off of Robert's body and onto his side, propping his head up with his hand and placing his other gently onto Robert's stomach, tracing circles into his skin. “Go on then,” Aaron teased. “How was it?”

Robert pretended to ponder on it. “Bearable. Might have to try it a second time to make up my mind, though.”

Aaron grinned, all sunshine and earth-shattering, and Robert had to kiss him. It was one of those kisses that started short and sweet before going somewhere deeper, and it would've done if Robert hadn't reached a hand under Aaron's very still-on shirt to touch his side, making him freeze instantly.

There was a pregnant silence, neither of them knowing what to say. Because what could Robert say? That he understood? That it was OK? He couldn't think of anything, besides not pushing it, that wouldn't give away that he knew something.

He started to try anyway. “Aaron, I-”

“No. Don't, just-just leave it yeah? For now?” Aaron asked and Robert nodded, trying to appear kind.

They slipped into silence again, the mood ruined for the time being, until Aaron broke it again. “What time is it?”

Robert stretched his head round to look at the digital clock on the bedside table. “Just gone ten.”

“Too late for us to sneak out unseen, then,” Aaron groaned, leaving Robert uneasy.

“Would that be so bad?” Robert asked. “Being seen?”

“No,” Aaron said carefully, realising why what he said would make Robert anxious. “Just didn't think you'd want my mum giving you an earful first thing.”

“I can handle Chas, it's more you we should be worried about,” Robert joked.

“If she tries it, I'll tell her it's none of her business.”

“Think that'll work?” Robert hummed.

“No. She'll leave it for a bit though, I think. Even she can't yell forever.”

Aaron started to look agitated, so Robert pressed a kiss to his forehead; making him scrunch his face up happily.

“As long as you're sure you still want this?” he asked softly, taking hold of the hand Aaron had on his stomach.

“I do,” Aaron insisted. “I just-” He took his hand away from Robert's to run it through his hair nervously. “I don't want anyone to scare you off.”

Robert scoffed. “Are you joking? If anyone of us is getting scared off its you. Half the village think I'm some dirty cheat.” Which was true, really, but he aimed to fix that.

“How about we both promise to not get chased off by whatever we might hear and just... take it slow? See where this goes?” Aaron asked. Robert had never wanted anything more and said just that, cradling Aaron's face in his hands.

Aaron's eyes flickered to Robert's lips, the misstep between them ignored.

Robert raised an eyebrow. “How long do you think we have until it's really obvious what we've been doing up here?”

“We lost that chance a good hour ago, mate,” Aaron laughed, but his eye's went back to Robert's lips, the desire in them clear.

They kissed, warm and wet and languid, until they heard the drumming of footsteps on the stairs. Even when Chas started banging on the door, Robert could feel his chest happily fluttering.

Turning point, indeed.

 

***

Taking it slow, it turns out, was pretty hard when you lived together, worked together and had no one else to hang out with in your spare time.

Not that Robert was complaining. The idea of having to properly _wine and dine_ Aaron, as weird as it sounded, had been objectively exciting, especially if he could've convinced Aaron to get dressed up. But sitting together in the pub, on opposite sides of the table where their legs were pressed close underneath, as Aaron grinned at him over a pint and burgers? More than enough.

Enough so that the two of them had taken as little notice as possible to the reaction from those in the pub to them each time. Chas and Vic being the two obvious to take notice – and two completely opposite ends on the spectrum of possible reactions – but Vic had been quickly taken up with the news she was going to be Andy's best man to harass Robert too much, and so far Aaron had managed to talk his mother down. When Robert had asked what he'd told her he'd shrugged, saying she was leaving it for now and that was that. Despite the times that Chas had almost caught the two of them _doing things_ together (which was a lot) they'd had no incidents.

(There _had_ been a time where Robert had had to hold Aaron's hand to the table to stop him from taking a swing at Ross when he made a comment, but it hadn't happened; it was fine. They were fine.)

Their prospering relationship gave Robert a lot of excuses for getting out of Andy and Katie's wedding build up, whether that be Diane prompting him to get invited to Andy's stag or Vic deliberately bringing Andy to the pub for any wedding discussions. It didn't matter, none of it did, since he'd decided pretty quickly that he wouldn't be going. Maybe if he and Katie could of gotten on, but after that day outside the Mill he knew it was a waste of time.

He told Aaron as much.

“I don't get it,” Aaron said. “He's your brother, Katie should have nowt to do with it.”

Robert raised an eyebrow at him from the kitchen, Aaron being sat at the table in the back room while he made them breakfast.

“Fine,” Aaron conceded. “I get why Katie matters. But all that was so long ago, can't you and Andy just talk amongst yourselves. Get it sorted without her interfering. ”

“It doesn't matter what we say to each other, he'll take her side regardless.” He placed Aaron's toast and tea on the table, the domesticity of it all settling within him pleasantly. “And I don't have the energy to get into scraps with them again. It'll be better for us all in the long run if we just ignore each other.”

“You can't seriously be planning to live the rest of your life tip toeing around 'em,” Aaron said after taking a massive bite of his toast.

“Don't do that, its disgusting,” Robert scolded, no real force in his words, sitting opposite him. “And I'm not, actually, I'm hoping that it'll all just... die down eventually.”

“It hasn't died down for a decade, Robert.”

“A decade I wasn't around for, mind,” he attempted to be light, but Aaron glared at him and Robert took him by the hand, serious now. “I'm grateful that you care. I really am. But me going to some wedding isn't going to solve the issues between us.”

Aaron frowned. “I don't like the way Katie speaks about ya, how they all do.” By 'they' meaning Chas, probably. “And if you don't spend Christmas at the wedding then who are you going to spend it with?”

“Wouldn't be the first time I spent it alone,” Robert joked, thinking of the first few Christmases away from the village, but Aaron's frown deepened. “It's not like I won't see any of them all day. I'll probably go to the after party for the free booze.”

Honestly, Robert hadn't taken much thought to this Christmas. The only thing he knew he wanted to do was not graffiti the wedding rings, which wasn't exactly a hard task. But Aaron was still upset. “Aaron, I don't want you worrying about me. We haven't been together long enough for you to be fretting about where I spend _Christmas_.”

“I know,” Aaron said, not really sounding like he did at all. “Still doesn't explain why stuff between the two of you has to be so difficult.”

“I'll tell you one day,” Robert promised, leaning in to press a kiss on Aaron's cheek as the back door opened.

Chas stood by the door, huffing when she saw exactly who was sat with her son. “This looks cosy,” she commented, moving towards the kitchen.

“Mum,” Aaron warned, “don't start.”

“Wasn't planning on it,” she said, her voice a fake, sickly sweet. “I just think it's weird that Robert's not in the pub with his family, is all.”

Robert knew what day it was, but he still flinched. Aaron must have seen it.

“ _Mum.”_

“What?” She placed her hand on her chest in mock-offence. “Andy and Katie were just telling me all about their wedding rings. Melted down from Jack's, apparently – Jack being Andy's dad, that is – and remade into two new ones. How sweet, passing something down to your son like that. Don't you agree, Robert?”

She was looking to bait him. He must have been playing too nice for too long, maybe she thought he was about ready to snap. Well, she could think again.

“It is sweet,” Robert said, but his jaw was clenching. “Dad would've wanted it that way.”

Chas stared him down for a few seconds, looking for the lie and not finding it. It hadn't been a lie, anyway, he knew what his dad would've wanted. She hummed and turned back to whatever she was doing, but Robert could feel Aaron's eyes on him.

He knew this was coming. He'd just hoped he could ignore it, consume himself so entirely in Aaron that none of it would matter.

“Look, why don't you have my toast? I just realised there's something being delivered at the Mill I need to be over there for,” he said, getting up. “I'll come by the garage to see ya later.”

“But you've barely touched any of it,” Aaron argued.

“I'll stop at the Cafe or something.”

With that he grabbed his coat and headed towards the back door, aware that his family were probably by the bar, gushing over the rings and how happy Jack would've been. Before closing the door behind him he heard Chas let out an offended “What?” and he imagined Aaron's face as he glared at her for bringing it up, even though at this point Aaron had no idea why Robert was even upset. The thought of it, Aaron being unwaveringly on his side, almost made him smile as he let his legs carry him through the village.

Because it was Emmerdale, the closet-sized village that it was, there were only so many places to go when you were upset. That's how he knew he would be going to the cricket pavilion before he'd even made the decision, finding himself sitting on the wooden steps that were slightly damp from the winter rain.

Robert's brain tried to rationalise how he was feeling. He'd been here before, obviously, and had thought tirelessly about this day, event, so being upset made no sense. It was the shock, he decided, of living it all again still getting to him, making him feel emotions that weren't his, but the Robert-from-now. The thought didn't stop his eyes getting glassy, didn't stop the montage of memories of himself and his Dad flash through him. If he squinted the haze in his eyes almost formed the two of them, sitting together and smiling like in that photo Diane enjoyed plastering everywhere.

And Robert hadn't missed his Dad for years, not like this. It wasn't time to start now.

“Hello stranger.”

It was Aaron, strong and lovely and kind Aaron, who never knew when to leave anything alone.

“Stalking me?” Robert joked, but his throat felt sore.

“You wish,” he felt more than heard Aaron say, not realising how and when Aaron had sat next to him. “Are you gonna tell me what happened in there?”

Robert said nothing, didn't know what to say. There were no words to explain it.

“Used to come here a lot too,” Aaron tried again. “Not like there's much else to go to in Emmerdale – which is how I found ya, by the way, if you were really stupid enough to think I wouldn't.”

“Wasn't trying not to be found. Just wanted a moment to think.”

“And did ya?”

Robert huffed. “Chance'd be a fine thing.”

He heard Aaron sigh. “I just wanna help, Robert. I can't if you don't talk to me.”

“I know,” Robert said. And then, with feeling, “I _know_.”

“Then talk to me.”

A steady stream of breathe came through Robert's mouth, like a child would before it would start crying. Robert felt the same.

“It's that stupid ring,” he said. “My dad's one, or Andy's now I suppose. They didn't tell me what they were gonna do with it, didn't even ask what I'd think.”

Just like that Aaron's arm was around him, warm and safe. “That's not fair,” he said, and Robert let out a breathy laugh.

“Yeah, well, welcome to my world.”

They sat there in silence for a bit as the sky began to turn darker, clouds looming above them. It reminded Robert of his Dad, and he saw that picture again like a siren flashing in his mind. Inescapable.

“You said that it was what your dad would've wanted?” Aaron questioned.

“He would've. He always liked Andy better.” He could feel Aaron stir, about to argue, but Robert continued, “You wanted to know why me and Andy have issues? You should ask Vic and Diane, I wonder what they'd say. If they'd even mention the fire that killed our Mum, or every time after that Dad took Andy's side over mine. That Andy was protected after something like that, but I was sent away.”

Tears made his face warm, almost as if they were trying to comfort him, and Aaron held him tight; pulling them close together, protecting him. Robert's mind was scrambled with it all, with the new present that was also the past, the deep past that still left it's marks in the present, the idea of what he wanted his future to be. In it all, he knew he was safe. That Aaron would keep him safe.

“I'm sorry,” Robert gasped. “I should be over all this.”

Aaron kissed the crown of his head before reaching to wipe his tears away. “There's not a time limit on how long things hurt, Robert. It's OK to-”

“But it's not,” Robert said, pulling away from him. “Because it's stopping me and Andy from ever being alright with each other. Stopping me from ever being able to remember him happily. And it,” his breathing was ragged, chest heaving, but he couldn't stop, “still happens now, even now he's gone. He's dead but he still makes me feel like this.”

Keeping the distance Robert had made between them, Aaron put a tentative hand on his leg and he allowed him too, needing some form of comfort. “It won't last forever.” Robert scoffed, but Aaron kept going. “I know that sounds like bullshit, but I promise ya it will.”

“It's been years. How can it still affect me like this?”

“Maybe you haven't given yourself a chance to get over it,” he said. “Maybe this can be a second chance for ya to confront your family over this. Say things you never got to say before.”

If Robert didn't know any better, he would've thought he _knew_. But he couldn't do, he would've acted differently somehow. Robert shook it off.

“Do you really think we can change things?” he asked.

“I know we can. I would still be that angry, closeted sixteen year old if we couldn't.”

Really, he couldn't argue with that.

He let Aaron pull him back into his arms, the image of his Dad fading away.

 

***

The return of Adam Barton was a strange one.

Adam had never been anyone that really _mattered_ , at least not to Robert. Being civil with him was as close as the two of them would ever get and Robert didn't see why that needed to change this time around.

But Aaron's excitement was infectious. And as his 'fella', as Vic liked to say, he felt he needed to mimic that. Especially when Aaron had nervously told him late at night how important Adam was to him, how much he'd like it if they got on (it also helped that that was followed with a blowjob, but _details_.)

This was how Robert found himself sitting in the pub between an excited Aaron and Adam, if he could even be considered there at all. It had always been like that before, even when they were at their best, but, well, him being the new boyfriend and all might have been some incentive for Aaron to include him in the conversation.

Behind them Vic was alone behind the bar, so Robert muttered he was going to get a refill, which was met with even more muttering, before approaching her.

“No offence Rob, but you look like you were having your soul sucked out of your body over there,” she said when he slammed his glass down on the side.

“No clue what you're talking about.”

“Oh come on, Aaron hasn't seen him in months. He just got out of prison!” she exclaimed, making Robert shush her.

“Tell the whole pub I'm feeling left out, why don't ya,” he groaned, looking over his shoulder to where Aaron and Adam were still happily chattering; not hearing Vic at all.

Huh, maybe he'd wanted them to after all.

“All I'm saying is, cut him some slack for being excited. He's practically the love of his life.” Which wasn't helping _at all_. “And maybe you should spend some more time with him, get to know him a little.”

Issue was he already knew him perfectly well, better than he would ever want to. And what could he tell her now, 'No, I already know Adam's no Aaron thanks'?

Instead, he said, “Maybe,” and shook his empty glass in her face, which she took with a scowl. He looked over his shoulder again and for a second Aaron looked at him, just once, and gave him a small smile. That was enough to make this worth it.

It didn't seem to be enough for Vic, though.

A half hour later, Robert still sat in relative silence, Vic came marching over with a smile that would normally send him running, but, honestly, he could use the entertainment right now.

“Hiya boys!” she said. “How's it going?”

“Alright,” Aaron and Adam said in unison (Robert could've groaned.)

“How's the outside world been treating ya?” she aimed at Adam, and Robert already knew where this was going.

“It's been good,” he beamed. “Me and Aaron here were talking about what I'm gonna do now I'm out.”

“He wants to start his own business,” Aaron said, not a fan of the idea.

Maybe Robert should have been listening.

“ _Our_ business,” Adam said. “Me and you have always wanted to, and now's our chance, man.”

“Doing what?”

“That's what we figure out. You can't be thinking of working for Cain forever.”

Aaron started to say something, but Vic interrupted. “That sounds like it'll take ages. What are you doing in the meantime?”

Adam shrugged and Aaron seemed to clock on to where this was going, looking at Robert with alarm.

“Well, Rob and Aaron have been doing up the Mill. Maybe you could help 'em out for a bit?”

“It's unpaid, before you get excited,” Robert said, hoping to deter him. “And there's a lot of work to do, it won't just be mucking around for a couple of hours.”

“I can do some serious work, unpaid 'n all.” Aaron snorted and Adam playfully punched him on the arm. “And honestly, having something to do now I'm out would be great.”

Aaron gave Robert a look that said _fix this._ Robert raised an eyebrow at him. _Fix it yourself._

“Adam, mate, there's a lot to do, he really wasn't kidding,” Aaron tried.

“All the more reason for me to help. I really don't mind. And, hey,” he said, excited in a way Robert didn't like, “maybe Vic could help too.”

_No no no no._

“Uh, I'm sure she's got other things to be-”

“I'd love to!” Vic said, either ignoring the way he and Aaron squirmed or missing it entirely. “This could be great, the four of us doing something together. It could be like a double date!”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Aaron scrunch his face up at the idea. “Fixing up a house isn't exactly a date, Vic.”

Adam bellowed, loud and imposing, “Is it weird I forgot you guys were together?”

Robert could already tell he was going to have a _great_ time.

 

***

“How could you let this happen?” Aaron angrily asked that night, the two of them getting ready for bed.

“They just wanna help, and I don't see why that's a bad thing,” Robert argued. “As much as I don't want to spend all my free time with my little sister, I do want to get the Mill done. Living with your mum is gonna send me to an early grave.”

“But-” Aaron started, then stopped himself, getting embarrassed.

“What?” Robert smiled.

“Nothing.”

“No, come on out with it!”

He went to tickle him, but Aaron dodged him; giving him a warning glare that Robert held back.

“It's supposed to be our thing, innit?” Aaron shrugged, looking to the ground as his cheeks turned red.

“Didn't realise we had _things_.”

“We don't anymore, and if you mention this again you can sleep in your own room!”

 

***

The Mill was currently a mess of equipment and opened up floor boards. New plumbing had to be put in, the joys of adding in a downstairs toilet, so they had to ignore the downstairs for now while real plumbers sorted it out.

Upstairs, however, was fair game since Aaron had helped fit the stairs in and they'd replaced the floor with something sturdier (all while complaining that, “Robert, only you could try to make a house safer by putting in something that's even more of a death trap than the one before.”) The four of them just needed to connect the new bath and shower to the already in place, functioning pipes and taps.

How hard could it be?

“Rob?” he heard Vic call a good ten minutes after he'd gone downstairs, needing to bring some supplies up. “Rob, can you help for a second?”

Despite calling for him, his sister sounded pretty calm so Robert wasn't expecting to find a drench Adam Barton laying on the floor; Vic covering her mouth with her hands, crying as she held back laughter.

“What the hell did you do?” he spat, feeling Aaron stop behind him; letting his laughter out freely. “Good to know we all find this hilarious.”

Aaron nudged him. “It's not like he broke anything... you didn't break anything, did ya?”

“No!” Adam exclaimed, still on the floor. “I dunno what happened, I just tried to put the tap on is all.”

Robert sighed and rubbed circles into his temple. “Did you think to check if the water was on?”

“Why would the bloody water be on?”

“I don't know, but obviously it is!”

“What I don't know is why you feel the need to have both a shower and a bath,” Adam huffed. “It's right poncy.”

Robert went to argue, but Aaron placed an arm around his waist comfortingly. “Especially a bath that big,” he commented, voice low in Robert's ear. “What you planning on doing in there?”

“Don't you start,” he warned half-heartedly. He loved Aaron when he was like this, open in his feelings towards Robert, revelling in his own happiness.

Vic gave Adam a hand to pull himself up and Aaron took the chance to pinch his arse, grinning wickedly as he quickly averted Robert's hands by going to asses exactly what Adam had been trying to do.

“We should get some towels,” Vic said. “For the floor, in case this happens again.”

“Thanks for volunteering yourself,” Aaron laughed.

Vic spluttered, “Oh, so I'm the girl so I have to go and get the towels?”

Aaron put his hands in the air, although he was still grinning, and Vic looked to Robert for support. He gave her a similar look.

“I hate all of ya's!” she called as she went out the door, sending the rest of them into laughter.

She wasn't gone long, walking back in carrying a handful of folded towels – a nervous looking Andy following her through the door.

“Look who I found on the street,” she singsonged, handing a towel to Adam. “Said they put a new shower in up at his last month and could lend a hand.”

“More like Vic reminded me I had, before dragging me up here,” he tried to joke, but his eye's were fixed on Robert. “But I'd like to help. I mean-if that's OK with ya.”

Aaron gave Robert a look that told him he'd be ready to drag him out by the ear, but he reassured him with a nod; turning back to Andy. “It's fine,” he said. “Could use someone that actually knows what they're doing.”

Andy offered a small smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And it was fine. Strangely so. They didn't speak to one another while they worked, but he could feel Andy constantly looking at him, like he was checking up on him, and he knew Andy could feel him do the same.

They were so alike, Jack and Andy. Biology or no, they were the same in so many ways: the way Andy rolled his sleeves up before he got started, the look of concentration on his face as he worked, how he would stop to scratch his beard every few minutes.

It all screamed _Jack, Jack, Jack_ and as the picture came to him again, he wondered what Andy saw when he looked at him. If he felt the same pit in his stomach as Robert did now, the one that felt an awful lot like regret.

They finished when it was getting dark and Vic started complaining about her back hurting. Adam seemed to like him more now than he had when they started the day, slapping him on the back and joking that he would get the Mill finished single handily faster than the rest of them. Aaron had watched the exchange with warmness.

As he was locking the Mill door, he called Andy back.

“I just wanted to say thanks,” he said, “for helping.”

“Don't think nowt of it,” Andy moved his feet from side-to-side the same way Aaron did when he was uncomfortable.

“But I should do. I know I've been avoiding ya and that hasn't helped either of us-”

“I've been avoiding you as well, to be fair.” And, yeah, it was – it was always the two of them that caused the issues, really, not one or the other. One of them would need to stop eventually.

“We don't have to get on,” Robert said. “But I'd really like it if things between us could be like it was today.”

Andy was quiet, contemplating, and Robert started to panic.

“You should come to the wedding.”

He wasn't expecting that.

“Andy-”

“Please,” he said. “If you're serious about playing nice. Come to the wedding and prove it.”

With a moments hesitation, he nodded. Katie wouldn't like it, but he'd do it anyway if it built bridges; if it meant he wouldn't get shot in a few months.

Andy nodded back and made his way up the road and past an Aaron who had clearly watched the whole exchange.

“I'm proud of ya,” he said when Andy was gone. “That can't have been easy.”

“Yeah, well, someone told me it would be easier to just talk to him, didn't they?”

Aaron smiled as Robert put an arm round him, the two of them walking to the Woolpack together.

“So,” he said. “You gonna be my date to the wedding?”

Aaron rolled his eyes, but they were twinkling nonetheless. “Thought you'd never ask.”

 

***

Andy and Katie's wedding came and went. Bernice still showed up in her wedding dress, Katie still found a way to say something insulting to Robert's face, but the rings came and went without issue and Andy even smiled at him, for a second, when he saw him sat next to Aaron - who stayed with him the whole time, a hand in his.

When it was finished the two of them went back to the pub, just like the last time, and rushed up to Aaron's room; locking the door behind them. Out of the corner of his eye, Robert had seen that picture of him and Jack, pride of place in the back room. He had surprised himself in feeling nothing at all.

All Robert knew was that he wanted to appreciate Aaron in his suit while it lasted, pressing kisses everywhere he physically could, behind his ears, on his neck, his chin. Aaron had already forced him out of his jacket and tie, and Robert was ready to even up the playing field before Aaron stilled him with a hand and moved to do it himself.

He would've moved back into Aaron's space, pushed him against the bed, but he looked troubled, like he was deciding something. Robert went to ask what was wrong, but Aaron started unbuttoning his shirt, leaving him frozen.

“Aaron,” he said quickly. “You don't have to-”

“I know,” Aaron said with certainty. “But I want to.”

That knocked Robert completely back. All he could do was put a questioning hand on Aaron's shirt, waiting for the other man to give him the go-ahead.

“Trust me?”

Aaron nodded, and that was all Robert needed.

He made sure to be careful as he undid the buttons and slid the shirt off of Aaron's back. It fluttered to the ground and Robert went with it, kneeling like a praying man in front of the man he loved. Aaron blushed, the heat of it covering his chest and making the marks on his belly shine.

Robert craved to touch, to cherish. He planned on doing both.

Gently, trying not to scare him, he placed a kiss on one of the scars, trying to put all of his adoration into it.

“ _Robert_ ,” he gasped. “Don't-don't be weird about it.”

“I'm not,” he said, lips moving against his skin. “Trust me, yeah? Promise you trust me.”

Aaron heaved and Robert could feel his muscles twitch in his stomach. But still, he nodded.

“Promise.”

With a smile, Robert got to work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Past and future loves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's February 5th, and this time it's Aaron keeping secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably my least favourite chapter so far.  
> I haven't edited it yet, so if there's any glaringly obvious mistakes then feel free to tell me in the comments!

When the clock had struck midnight on new years, he and Aaron had kissed in the middle of the whole pub, drunk and silly, while Adam made loud whooping noises in the background. He had felt so lonely, the real him in the real then, at the party at home farm, and now he was surrounded by so many people and so much noise it was impossible to not feel present in the room. The feeling of not wanting to be anywhere else in the world – it was overwhelming. Even Andy had given him a slap on the back once Aaron had pulled away from him, while Katie stood with Chas and watched it happen.

But at half past he creeped out, leaving Aaron with Adam, and took the 2014 planner to the public bin by the park.

He felt like he was getting rid of evidence. Like he was a criminal, somehow. But if anyone found it there'd be too many questions he couldn't answer, like why he had written the days events in green, while in black, clearly written first, were events that had never happened.

It would only get worse throughout the years, the things that were different; the obvious changes. He wondered if there would come a point when things were so different that he couldn't affect them anymore.

He hoped so. There were some things you just shouldn't know.

He threw the planner into the bin and drew a lighter from his pocket. After checking that no one was around to see this happen, he turned it on and watched the bin blow.

After a second of nothing, orange light grew and spread rapidly. Fire was something else he would always associate with Emmerdale: fire when his mother died, fire when the car had exploded with Max King trapped inside, fire that caused the helicopter to crash. Now, fire as he hid his secrets.

In a daze he watched it burn and burn and burn.

A flake of it blew out, landing by Robert's foot, bringing him to his senses. He'd brought a bottle of water with him and poured the contents of it inside the flames, coughing when the orange turned to thick, black smoke. Behind it all he could just make out the engraved '2014' on the cover, the rest of it turned to char; his secrets unfindable.

Back at the Woolpack, the party was raging on in true Dingle fashion. Katie watched him again as he came back inside and the feeling he had made a mistake came rushing back.

But Aaron slung an arm around him, all giddy, and whined that he'd missed him.

No one noticed that he smelt of smoke.

 

***

“I can't let you do this,” Aaron said, barging into the back room where he was having a meeting with one of the plumbers for the Mill. Robert nodded to the man and promised they would finish this later, leaving the two of them alone.

“What have I done now?”

“The investment for the scrapyard,” he said, as if Robert was being dense. “It's not gonna work anyway, I don't know anything about scrap.”

“It can't be that difficult,” he mused, walking towards the sofa and grabbing Aaron by the hand to pull him down beside him.

“We don't even have a location anymore since we can't use the farm!” Aaron worried his bottom lip. “And you're not supposed to do business with people that you, you know.”

Aaron own words caused him to blush, and Robert grinned. “Then you'll find somewhere else,” he said. “And it's not beyond the realm of possibility that this will make us closer instead.”

“Maybe. But what if this all goes wrong and I loose all your money-”

The money in question was supposedly a last minute payment from Chrissie. He'd told Aaron that she'd realised she hadn't paid him the real amount he was owed when they'd split, and had decided to give it to him now before he sued. Aaron had been suspicious at first (and Katie still was, telling him multiple times that she knew he had done something dodgy to get it) but had come around eventually.

“I wouldn't have decided to invest if I believed that was a possibility.” Back then he had, since he could afford the loss, but now he had the pleasure of knowing – not that he could tell Aaron that. “I believe in you. I _trust_ you. Plus, it's about time I paid you back for helping out at the Mill.”

Aaron looked less tense, but still didn't seem convinced, so Robert put a hand on his knee and leaned in close. “Hey,” he said, voice soft. “Don't make me think I fell for a quitter.”

Originally, that line hadn't been something he'd thought of. It had fell from his mouth naturally, but he'd spent a good week afterwards thinking about it; remembering how his heart had started slamming in his chest the second he'd set foot back inside home farm, while trying to ignore what those words meant. In the end, he'd convinced himself he only said it to keep Aaron on side, that they were lies, but his heart would always betray his mind.

Now, it felt just as right as it had then. Aaron scrunched his nose a little as he smiled, red in the face, a far cry from the shocked way he had stared back at Robert the first time.

Aaron conceded, saying it was Robert's own funeral if things went south. Robert told him he was willing to take that chance.

 

***

_February 5th, 2015: Chrissie and I get married. I kill Katie. Aaron covers it up._

 

The Mill, despite various disasters, was finished.

Yesterday had been spent making sure they hadn't missed a spot to paint, Vic going around the downstairs of the Mill with a paintbrush the size of a tooth pick and complaining that no one else cared about the 'finer details'. Adam had snorted at her, flicking a brush loaded with blue paint in her direction, landing down her back in an assault that she swore she would've returned if she didn't care so much about keeping the walls in good shape.

After, they'd visited Dad's grave – just the three siblings, with some flowers they'd gotten from David's. None of them had spoken for a while, just staring at the words carved into the stone in a friendly silence. They were there for the same reason, mourning the same man, but Robert hadn't been able to stop himself from comparing the three of them. Vic was mourning the Father she'd known, or rather hadn't had time to know very well at all. Andy was there for the man he'd idolised and had done the same to him in return. Robert wasn't really sure what he was there for at all.

The comparison hurt him less than it would've done, if this was really the him from now. He realised there had been a lot of changes within himself in the last month; a lot of letting go and moving on. It felt as if maybe the chapter of his life where he hated his Dad was over, finally.

He'd decided to mourn that instead.

Katie had been waiting for them by the edge of the graveyard next to a disgruntled looking Aaron. Next to might have been too kind a phrase, considering they were stood as far away from each other as physically possible. Aaron had his arms in his pockets and a wicked scowl on his face while Katie folded her arms crossed, turning her face away from him.

“Is everything OK?” he'd asked as Katie had dragged Andy away, Vic following on behind them.

“Fine,” he'd answered bluntly.

“Things don't seem fine.”

Aaron had shrugged, taking a hand out of his pocket to put in Robert's own. “I'll tell ya tomorrow.”

He hadn't so far. But today wasn't for picking fights with your boyfriends, or mourning your Fathers, today was moving in day – something Chas hadn't been able to tame her excitement about.

She was humming to herself in the back room that morning, giving Aaron an exceptionally large kiss on the cheek when the two of them came downstairs, and even offered to make the two of them breakfast. Robert thought about making a joke about poison, but Aaron looked at him like he knew exactly what he wanted to say, so he opted for politely declining instead.

“So, today's the big day!” Chas said, rubbing her hands together. “What time are you all heading over there?”

Aaron rolled his eyes. “About an hour from now. Vic wants us to start bright and early, so we can have dinner together or summat.”

“Because half nine is _so_ early,” Robert teased as he pinched Aaron's side. Chas curled her mouth up in disgust at the gesture. “And she'll be lucky if I even have a functioning table by the end of today, knowing what you lot are like.”

“You and your smart mouth should be thankful we're helping at all,” Aaron glared, hands on his hips, but his blue eyes were wild with delight.

Chas hastily butted in, “But... you're still going to be living there by the end of the day, right?” she asked, her voice full of hope. “Sleeping there 'n all?”

“Well, I don't actually have a bed yet, but a mattress on the floor will do me for a couple of days,” Robert said. “But yeah, that's the plan.”

“Right,” Chas said, her gaze focusing on Aaron. “Love, I was wondering if when you were done you could come straight back here and help me with a delivery?”

In an instant, Aaron's expression turned sour. “Can't you ask Diane or Marlon?”

“They both have over things on this afternoon. Come on sweetheart, remember when you promised you'd help me with anything I wanted the next time I asked?” Aaron's face morphed into something Robert didn't think he'd ever seen on him before. It was a strange mix of resignation and shock, like he'd just remembered something he'd forgot. Robert wondered what part of this all he was missing.

“Yeah, alright,” Aaron said. “I'll be straight back over.”

“Should I expect you back over at the Mill when you're done, or?” Robert asked, thinking of his plans of curling up on the sofa before sharing a bath, where they could enjoy being able to touch each other as freely as they wanted to now they were finally alone, for the first time.

“No,” Aaron said, but it sounded forced. “It'll be well late by then, and you'll be too tired after today to wait up for me.”

Disappointment settled heavily in Robert's stomach like a dead weight. When he'd said he'd be fine on a mattress on the floor, it was based on the assumption that he wouldn't be sleeping _alone_. His eyes flickered back and forth between the mother and son, trying to figure out what had just happened; what he'd missed.

“Come on,” Aaron said. “We should get breakfast at the Café before we get started.”

 

***

“Honestly Rob, what you're planning on doing with three ovens is beyond me,” Vic exclaimed, running around the kitchen at the Mill so fast it was dizzying.

“It's more practical, Vic, it means I can cook more at once,” Robert argued, sat at the table (which they _had_ managed to assemble, thank God) with a glass of red wine. “Plus it looks neater. Fills in the gaps.”

Vic sighed loudly before adding something she'd been cutting up into the pan on the stove. Robert watched warily.

“When you said you were making pasta-”

“I _am_.”

“-you said it would be quick and easy. No fuss, remember?”

“Well who am I supposed to try my experiments on if not my brother and friends?” Vic shot back, making Adam chuckle from where he was sat with Aaron on the sofa; the two of them having immediately taking it upon themselves to get the new TV up and running.

“Don't believe a word she says,” Adam said, still laughing. “She's spent the last week trying this recipe out. Got me to taste it every time.”

“Traitor,” Vic mumbled, and to Robert's face said, “I wanted to do something _nice_ for ya, since you've officially moved back into the village.” She fumbled with the wooden spoon she'd been using. “And, well, the recipe... it's one of Mum's.”

The gesture went straight to his chest, knocking him for six. The day before they'd almost wandered over to her grave, but Robert had looked at Andy beside them and knew he wasn't ready to handle that yet. Vic had given him a knowing look when he'd steered them away from that direction and rubbed a hand on his arm comfortingly, as if she knew what that took.

Wordlessly he put his glass down and stood up, pulling his sister into a hug. “Thank you,” was all he could think of, but still didn't feel like enough. He didn't deserve her.

“Don't thank me yet,” she said. “There's still one more surprise.”

As if on que, there was a knock at the door.

It was Andy, holding a bottle of Champagne. Katie was stood just behind him looking extremely uncomfortable.

“Andy,” he said surprised, purposefully leaving her name out. “I wasn't expecting to see you today, I thought you were busy.”

“I was,” he said, looking at Katie for a second. “Doesn't mean I can't congratulate my brother on moving in though, does it?”

Robert smiled, taking the bottle when Andy awkwardly extended it towards him. It was against his better judgement, and everything else he knew about today, and yet, “You don't have to stand out there, you _can_ come in,” he said, taking a step back for emphasise. “I-I wouldn't mind it if you wanted to stay for dinner either. You know how Vic always makes too much anyway.”

Andy looked flustered. “I mean... I wouldn't want to barge in on you-”

“That sounds lovely, actually,” Katie said, speaking for the first time.

The both of them must have looked shocked, even the rest of the house must have, but Katie stepped around Robert and into the Mill as if she had never had a reason for not wanting to be there in the first place.

A tense silence broke out in the Mill for the next few minutes, the TV giving enough background noise to stop the atmosphere from becoming too painful. Luckily, Vic announced dinner was ready before things could get worse.

Food always had a way of livening the mood. Andy talked about Wiley's farm and how it was now owned by the council, since no one was occupying Home Farm, and that they were trying to raise enough money to make an offer on it.

Katie noticeably stayed silent for that.

It was when the conversation turned to the Scrapyard that she decided to let herself go.

Adam was excitedly talking about the equipment he wanted to buy, now they had their first client to start making a profit from. Katie raised her eyebrow, and Robert knew what was coming.

“Would've thought Robert's investment would pay for that stuff,” she said. “I heard he paid a lot of money.”

Robert felt Aaron go into fighting mode, ready to defend. To quell him, he put a hand on his leg; giving it a tight squeeze.

“He did,” Adam said timidly, seeing how the two of them reacted but not understanding why. “That paid for the things we already have. Like the Porto-cabin.”

Katie hummed around a bite of her pasta. “And how much did he pay?”

“ _Katie_ ,” Andy scolded, but Robert intervened.

“It's fine,” he said, tightening his grip on Aaron's leg. “If you have to know, it was ten grand.”

She made a _pssh_ noise. “That's a lot of money to give away for a man that's meant to be broke.”

“It's not giving it away,” Robert said, keeping his cool. “It's an investment. You profit from investments, or you hope to anyway.”

“See, that's the thing.” She placed her cutlery down heavily, folding her arms across the table. “You don't gamble that kind of money, Robert. Not for a man that you've known for two months – hell, I wouldn't give that much to my own family. The things you're doing make no sense.”

The worst part of it all was she was right. Like she had been right the last time round. And now Robert would have to lie until his jaw ached to keep himself from being discovered – _again_.

If the ice cold rush of panic wasn't spreading through him, he would've thought about the irony of where he was, despite how much he had done to change things.

“What you're missing is that I didn't give all of the money to the investment,” he explained. Robert didn't like the way his voice sounded when he spoke. “I kept a couple grand. Just for safe keeping, maybe to use to finish the second flat to a higher standard so I can rent it out for more. It's not as much of a conspiracy as you want it to be, Katie.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

By now Vic was looking warily across the table, everyone having stopped eating. “I don't really think this is the time to talk about _business_ ,” she tried, keeping her voice light.

But Katie wasn't having it. “No, I want to know what he means by me _wanting_ it to be.”

“You know exactly what I mean,” he snapped.

It was the reaction Katie was waiting for.

“Poor Robert,” she mocked. “It must be so _difficult_ to have everyone be so against you all the time, when you've done _absolutely nothing_ to make people be suspicious at all!”

“That was almost a _decade_ ago,” he shouted, fuelled on rage and frustration.

“Then why are you getting so bloody defensive?”

“Why can't you just move on?”

“You think it's just me?” she snorted. “Tell me, how is dating someone who's Mum hates ya going?”

Robert paused. “Chas doesn't say anything to us.” Which was true, but he knew she said a whole lot to everyone else.

“Yeah, I wonder why that is?” she asked, voice dripping with sarcasm, moving her gaze straight at Aaron, who started fidgeting in his chair.

Robert couldn't help but think of the back room just a few hours ago, about Aaron not wanting him to talk to Chas after their first night together in his room, about the casual way he'd dismissed Robert's concerns about Chas.

Suddenly everyone was looking at him.

“Aaron?” he asked, not really wanting to know at all.

“It was just something stupid I told her to get her to leave us alone!”

“What was?” he pushed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Katie beaming.

“It's not as bad as it sounds.”

“ _What_ wasn't?”

Aaron gulped. “I told her we were just messing around, is all,” he said, but Robert could tell there was more to it. “That we-we would be over by the time you moved out.”

“You told her you were after his money, when he invested,” Katie said. She said something else after that, but all Robert could hear was the pumping of his own blood as it rushed around his ears.

_Beat._

It wasn't even that he was upset with Aaron -  he understood lying to the people you cared about. But all he could feel was sinking, like

_Beat._

very quickly, he was loosing control. That no matter what he did, he would always be the bad guy. Robert Sugden: destroyer of lives.

_Beat._

He knew Aaron was saying things too, but those were words he chose to ignore.

“Why?” he asked, voice small.

Aaron started to speak but he stopped him, “Not you. Katie.” He looked at her. “Why do you still hate me so much? After all this time?”

Katie stood up, rocking the table as she did so, but Andy grabbed her arm; looking at her as horrified as Robert felt.

“ _Why_?” he repeated, and it was like a lid had been opened inside of her.

“You cheated on me,” she seethed. “I risked everything to be with ya. You made me cheat on Andy, you made me sink to your disgusting level and then you played it all back on me. You _humiliated_ me.”

“I didn't make you do anything,” Robert said and Katie huffed, running out the Mill and slamming the door behind her.

The rest of them just looked on, shell shocked.

Robert was aware of people leaving, just as he was aware of Aaron staying.

Like he knew he had moved from the table to the sofa, as Aaron did the dishes behind him; joining him on the sofa when he was done.

They sat in silence for a while. He didn't look at him, but he could imagine what he looked like: drained, tired, upset.

“Say something,” Aaron said eventually. “Anything.”

Robert didn't.

“Yell at me if you want. Scream at me. Just promise me it's not over.”

It was that – the sound of Aaron starting to cry – that snapped him out of it.

“Of course it's not over.”

Aaron sighed, sagging back onto the sofa. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean any of it. I don't even know _why_ I said those things.”

“It's OK,” he said, meaning it. “I've lied about worse things.”

“Doesn't make it right. Because,” Aaron rushed onto his knees before Robert, taking his hands in his own as he stared up at him; begging, “I've never felt so much for someone so fast. Sometimes I wonder why, you know, but I decided I don't care. Because...”

Robert knew what was coming – today was the day, after all.

“Because I love you,” Aaron sobbed. “And-and I think, hope, you feel the same.”

And although he felt like someone had sucked the life out of him, he knew how he felt, that it would always be Aaron, no matter what timeline, no matter what he would do to him. Always.

“Of course I feel the same, you idiot,” he said and it felt like a weight was being lifted from his shoulders. “I love you.”

They didn't kiss, couldn't find the energy to, but Robert collapsed into Aaron's arms and it was better than perfect.

That night, on the mattress on the floor, Robert whispered to Aaron – the man who _loved_ him – that today was supposed to be the day he got married. That, despite how much worse he thought the day would be, Aaron still managed to make it better.

No matter what else he'd done.

 

***

They woke up the next morning to the news that Katie had disappeared.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaron's actions will be explained, if you're wondering.  
> As for Katie...


	7. The higher the rise...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert realises that he doesn't have all the power.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took so long yikes.  
> But I want to say a massive thank you for 200 kudos! The thought of literally anyone reading this is insane, let alone liking it enough to leave a bookmark or a comment or a kudo. Thank you.

Andy had come bashing round the Mill, shouting and screaming how it was Robert's fault she had gone; that he should never have come back.

Aaron had had to hold him back from reaching Robert – the pure hatred in his eyes making it clear what he would do if he got to him.

(Chas felt the same. She didn't say it, but her eyes spoke for her. Robert didn't think anyone had ever been as mad as she had when he and Aaron went round there together to tell her that Aaron had lied, that Robert was for keeps. The two of them had screamed it out for an hour, until Paddy had shown up and calmed them down; forcing Chas to listen to her son.

The only way she allowed that to happen was once Robert had gone, though. Before he had she'd looked at him steadily and said, with absoluteness, that Robert had ruined Katie's life and now was going to the same to her son.

She hadn't said anything to him since.)

They hadn't heard anything for days, after that. Vic had told them the police were involved, but that was about it. For all of those days Robert woke up in cold sweats, his dreams swamped with images of Katie's dead, unmoving body on the barn floor. Aaron was there every time – an arm around him, keeping him close, soothing him with promises that it wasn't his fault and there was no way he could've known.

Oh, what Aaron would say if he knew the truth.

But a week later the village was driven mad with gossip when the police came knocking on Andy's door, not leaving for over an hour.

Over the course of that time Robert had thought of every single possible reason the police were there. Every thought lead back to the image of her dead and gone, making him shake. Near the end of it, the thinking was making him spiral. So, he grabbed his jacket and walked to Andy's, ignoring Aaron and Vic as they came running after him. The police were just leaving when they arrived, and Andy was stood staring into space.

Robert had never seen him looking so lost.

That was what convinced him, what told him all he needed to know. Katie was dead. Robert had failed at one of the few things he had set out to change this soon, and Katie was dead.

_Dead and gone._

And he may as well have pushed her all over again.

His legs began to shake violently, his vision blurring over and chest heaving with every breath he took. For a moment he thought he was going to collapse, but Aaron was there, like he always was, holding him steady. It gave him the strength to hear what Andy said next.

“I hope you're happy now,” he said. “She's not coming back.”

And that should've taken him out completely, but, “The police have found her at some B&B apparently. Says she doesn't want us to know where she is until she's sure she wants to come back.”

And that was...

It was-

“Are they sure?” was all he could ask.

Andy laughed, short and sharp. “They gave me a letter from her.” He waved a piece of paper around for emphasis. “So, like I said, I hope you're happy now.”

“I didn't want this, Andy,” Robert said, although his mind was run ragged with thoughts about how _great_ this was. “I tried to be nice.”

Sighing, Andy rested his body against the side of his door; thinking. “You know, I actually believe that. Dunno if it's because I want to, or because I know that Katie wasn't exactly on her best behaviour when it came to ya. But you still shouldn't have come back, Robert. Not as quick as you did. It weren't good for anyone.”

Part of him wanted to yell at Andy as he closed his door in their faces. Ask _how_ he had started any of this, but another part of him was singing the same words again and again like a mantra in his mind.

It was past February 5 th , and Katie was alive.

 

***

Robert allowed himself a day to be happy before he went back to his planner. He went through and drew a blue star next to any dates he hoped might be changed based on what he'd already done. Katie being alive had sparked something in him, something that he thought had died during the week of her disappearance. It proved that things could be changed – not only the small and insignificant things, like who he went to a bar with or the events causing an 'I love you' – _real_ , important changes where lives could be saved.

The helicopter crash was first: no Chrissie, no fire, no crash, no dead Val.

(Imagining the mere possibility of it made him smile.)

He put one on the Lodge, too, for obvious reasons.

But he came to a stand still over his shooting. Katie may be alive, but Andy had gone back to hating him once again. Whether or not he hated him enough to kill him remained unclear, but that was all something Robert would have to deal with when the date got closer.

Problem was, his relationship with Andy so far had been mixed. One day they would get on, the next something would happen to ruin it all. It was like Andy couldn't decide where he stood with him. Or that Katie had spewed so much poison into his ear that her being gone did nothing to ease tension.

All this meant was it would be harder to make them solid, or at least able to tolerate each other for more than a few weeks. Robert pressed a hand to where the bullet-shaped scar would ( _might_ ) be, like someone would rub their chin or scratch their forehead in confusion.

With a sigh, he moved past it.

“Hiya,” Aaron said, walking into the Mill. Robert slammed his planner shut, feeling like a teenager who had just been caught looking at porn. “What you up to?” Aaron asked, eyeing the planner.

“Just, ugh, ya know, putting in some dates.” He nervously drummed his fingers on the table just next to it.

Aaron merely scoffed, sitting down opposite him. “What have you got to write down, you don't even have a job.”

Ah, right, he'd almost forgotten. Robert would be lying if he said he knew the current state of the Haulage Company, but waiting another year would run him dry; even with the money from Chrissie and the Scrapyard.

“I'm actually, um, working on that right now,” he said, not technically lying since _now_ he was. “Thinking about my options.”

“I'm sure you'll find something,” Aaron reassured him, before shifting slightly in his seat, anxious now. “Look, I know we didn't have anything planned for today, but I wanted to ask ya about summat.”

It was Robert's turn to shift, the planner feeling like a hot furnace on the table, glowing and burning and exposing him. “Have I done something wrong?”

“It's not-” he started. “It's not anything you've _done._ It's... it's about Katie.”

“Right.” Robert swallowed, the tempo of his drumming fingers increasing with the speed of his heart. “What about her?”

“The week she went missing, and yesterday I guess, you were... the way you were acting...” Robert prepared himself for the worst. “Don't-don't take this the wrong way, but the way you were acting, it was almost like... well, like you still have feelings for her.”

He wasn't expecting _that_.

In fact, the idea of it was so sickening and _unfathomable_ he burst out laughing, tears streaming down his face as Aaron watched on; annoyed.

“If you're gonna be like that about it,” he grumbled, taking to stand but Robert took hold of his arm.

“No, no, no,” he said quickly, almost choking on his own tears. “I'm sorry, don't go.”

Aaron huffed, but sat back down.

“I was just worried about her, that's all,” Robert said. “If she'd run off and gotten herself into an accident because she had an argument with me – I don't know what I would've done. It felt like...,” Robert took a breath, “like I'd killed her.”

Aaron instantly softened. “I'm sorry,” he said earnestly. “I don't know why my mind went there.”

“It's fine, I was being a bit... over the top.”

“But it's not,” he insisted. “I swear half the time stuff comes to my head like that out of nowhere. Was fully prepared to storm in here and have a go at ya n' all, spent the whole week working myself up over this.”

Tasting bile in the back of his throat, Robert remembered another time that had happened. “Well, don't let it happen again, OK? You can tell me anything that's bothering ya, even if that thing happens to be me.” That made Aaron release a breathy laugh, sounding almost relieved. But Robert was curious. “But, when you said that stuff comes to you out of nowhere,” he started cautiously, “does that include the stuff you told your mum about us?”

For a second Aaron froze, looking into Robert's eyes like he was trying to decide if this was a trap. Not finding any hint of that, he nodded once, twice quickly, as if he was embarrassed.

“You never did tell me about all that,” he said. “You don't have to if you don't want to, obviously. I've forgiven you, it's in the past, but. But I wouldn't mind knowing how it all started.”

Seconds passed in silence.

Then, “My mum asked me about us going out for a drink, before we went to Bar West.” He shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time to tell her it was just as mates, ya know, just to get her off my back.”

“Which was why you didn't want me talking to your mum after we slept together?”

He nodded. “Fat lot of good that did. She knew right away what we were up to-”

“Weren't exactly subtle though, were we?” Robert joked, and Aaron smiled, although half-heartedly.

“She must have given me a hundred different questions after you'd left. It's funny, I'd told myself I was just gonna tell her we were gonna try something out together, see where it went, but the second I got down there it was like I was tongue-tied. Could only shrug and say it was casual.”

Robert felt himself frown. “And then, after the Scrapyard investment?”

“God, she was so angry when she found out. Kept saying you were trying to buy my affections or summat like that.” Aaron chewed on his bottom lip, eye's full of regret. “Again, I told myself I was gonna argue, but it was like my mouth was moving before my mind could catch up. Like... like I just couldn't say it.”

And that – that was worrying.

“I know it's a shitty excuse,” Aaron continued. “But it's true. Something must be seriously wrong with me-”

“Nothings wrong with ya,” Robert said, taking Aaron's hand in his own. “I understand. You felt pressured, like you needed to lie. I've been there more times than I can count.”

But Aaron shook his head. “It was more than that. It felt like – it did feel like it was something I needed to do, but I'd never even considered any of what I was saying until it was coming out of my mouth! Like today, when I got really angry about you and Katie. Felt like I needed to, like I was supposed to be angry with you today but I didn't know why, and that was the only thing my head could come up with.”

Aaron huffed out a laugh, shaking his head.

“It's crazy, I know.”

Robert stared at their conjoined hands, stomach churning.

None of this was good.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Crazy.”

 

***

Nicola and Jimmy were having lunch in the pub. Jimmy had been stealing chips from Nicola's plate for a good twenty minutes without Nicola noticing, almost one chip for every minute.

The only reason Robert knew this was because he had been watching them for all twenty.

He needed a real job and he needed one badly. He'd done the maths, and he figured he could go another six months or so before he became really desperate, but above all need for money he needed something to do that wasn't stare into space and think about the possible future. His talk with Aaron hadn't made time spent on his own any easier than it had been before, either. If he allowed himself to ponder the possibility that Robert couldn't change anything, that the world was acting against him, he'd spiral.

So, a job it was.

“What are you up to?” Vic asked, coming towards him from behind the bar. “You look like you're thinking too hard.”

He'd have liked to point out he was always thinking too hard these days, but secrets and all that.

“Been thinking about getting a job,” he said, which made her smile.

“That's great!” she exclaimed. “Would say you could work here, but I don't think Chas would like that very much.”

Robert groaned. “Don't start, Vic.”

She gasped. “I'm not! I'm just saying that you're gonna need to get on her good graces if you're serious about him.” Ignoring a call from Marlon from the kitchen, she added, “And it wouldn't hurt if you said sorry to Andy.”

“For _what_?”

Huffing, she said, “I don't know! Anything! Whatever it takes to get you two back on track, you guys were doing so well before Katie went away.”

“Yeah, and it's not like he's blaming me for that or anything,” Robert said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Doesn't excuse you trying with Chas,” Vic pointed out. “And he's been angry at Aaron too, but that's not stopped him from doing that run thing.”

Robert raised his eyebrows. “Run thing?” A less eloquent way to describe it, but he knew what she meant. This was something else he'd put a star next to, since he didn't think there'd be any reason for Aaron to overdo it running now Katie was alive and fine.

“Some charity run he's doing to help take his mind off Katie,” she said. “I heard Aaron tell Chas he was going to train with him, give him some company. Didn't realise he didn't tell ya.”

With that, they heard a louder, more aggressive call from Marlon; forcing her to yell back.

“I better go,” she said. “Tell me how job hunting goes.” She went to go to the kitchen, but turned to glare at him. “And talk to Andy and Chas, before I do it for ya.”

Robert racked his brain for a reason Aaron would offer to do this for _Andy_ of all people. He had no guilt now, there was no dead Katie now, there shouldn't even be a _run_ now.

_It was more than that. It felt like – it did feel like it was something I needed to do._

He pinched himself, keeping himself together. There was no reason to believe this had anything to do with that, to believe that this was even a 'that' in the first place.

Aaron didn't have a reason to overdo it. He didn't have a reason to try to hurt himself. Robert would just have to hold on and believe that everything would be fine.

 

***

Aaron had told him that same day he was doing it. When Robert had asked why, he'd said he wanted to make things right with Andy, even if his anger wasn't directed at him, and hoped that whatever progress he could make with him here would help Robert in the long run ( _ha!_ ).

When Robert asked him if it was like the things he'd told Chas, he'd reassured him that it wasn't.

And it was such an Aaron reason for doing something, wasn't it, so how could Robert try to tell him not to? Instead, he promised himself he'd watch over him. After a run he'd pull Aaron into the shower and check his body for any mark or bruise that wasn't supposed to be there, all the while placing kisses everywhere he looked, and sometimes even checking how worn Aaron's trainers were. He even went with them a few times, once with both Andy and Aaron, which had been both awkward and frustrating, and once with just Aaron (both times reminding him vividly why he never runs in the first place).

But all in all, it seemed fine. Aaron wasn't overdoing things, just like he knew he wouldn't, and if he was being honest (and _gay_ , if you wanted to put it like that), the running was doing _fantastic_ things for Aaron's legs.

So for weeks he let it happen without asking, or checking up on him.

Until Chas Dingle showed up at his door.

“Where is he?” she demanded, barging right past him and into the Mill. “I know he's here, he always bloody is these days, so there's no point in playing dumb.”

“He's not,” Robert said truthfully, not bothering to close the door behind her. “And even if he was, what do you need him for?”

“Adams been asking for him,” she said. “Not that that's any of your business.”

Robert scoffed, “I'm his boyfriend, I think his business is my business.”

Chas just sneered at him, turning and bellowing “ _Aaron!_ ” up the stairs.

“I told you already, he's not here,” Robert said. “Didn't he come home last night?”

It was mostly said as a joke, but Chas' face turned stone cold. “No,” she said. “He didn't.”

Robert's stomach dropped and he swallowed hard. “He wasn't here either,” Robert said, voice small.

“Then where the _hell_ is he?” she spat, and Robert wanted nothing more than to tell her.

But he couldn't.

“I don't know.”

They stared at each other in stunned silence.

“Is there any chance he went out last night?” Robert asked, already knowing the answer. He wouldn't go out without asking Robert if he wanted to come.

Chas shook her head. “Last time I saw him he was going for a run-”

That was all Robert needed to hear.

He didn't even remember putting his coat on, or grabbing his car keys, but the next thing he knew he was driving like a maniac to the woods that Aaron had collapsed in last time, Chas screaming in his ear as he drove.

“Robert, what's going on?”

He ignored her.

“Robert Sugden, for God's sake, if you do not tell me where we're going I'll-”

“We're going to where Aaron runs,” he said, not really hearing it. “I-I think something bad might have happened.”

That kept her quiet.

Robert slammed the brakes on his car when they got to where they needed to be, not caring if he got a ticket, and charged head first into the woods as Chas ran after him.

It was like he was moving on auto-pilot, moving to anywhere that looked familiar, trying to immerse himself in the memory of that day. Behind the beating sound of his blood pulsing in his ears, he could hear Chas struggling to catch up. Suddenly, all he could remember was the weight of the rock in his hand and Chas' head in front of him. It drew him to a stand still, Chas slamming into his suddenly frozen body.

“What's wrong?” she asked, but her voice was frustrated. “Have you seen something?”

He couldn't see anything at all. There was only blackness as a weight seemed to be pressing against his chest, stopping him from moving; breathing.

He'd known this would happen, yet he'd done nothing to stop it. He'd had so many chances to tell him to stop, to convince him to come back to bed instead of go on a run, to even take his place – but he hadn't. Robert had done nothing, and now here was once again, in the woods with Chas.

_Done nothing, done nothing, done nothing._

Chas had a hand on his shoulder now, and from what he could hear her voice was a lot softer than it had been. Everything around her voice was white noise flooding his system, making him feel like he was closing in on himself.

And that's all there was for what felt like days. Until-

_Robert._

It wasn't Chas, who was shaking him now. Chas' voice, despite everything, was loud and demanding, evidence of her panic. This one was faint, like it was far away.

 _Robert_.

Slowly, he regained feeling in his legs, his arms, his chest. He could breath again.

_R-Robert._

The voice was even fainter now, struggling. Like a bucket of water had been thrown over his head, he realised-

_Robert._

He was on his knees, somehow, Chas still gripping onto his shoulder's. Gasping, he shrugged her off and staggered to his knees, rushing towards the voice.

Aaron was laying on the ground, his foot trapped at an awkward angle, his lips blue as he shook.

“ _Aaron!_ ” Chas called, but Robert was already there, putting his coat over him and holding him close.

“Call an ambulance,” he barked, feeling far too fragile to move a mere millimetre away from.

Aaron tried to reach for him, but his arms started to shake, so Robert held them tight, wrapping them up tight with his own.

“Knew you would come,” Aaron murmured.

Robert pressed a kiss to his forehead.

 

***

Robert had always hated hospital waiting rooms.

It reminded him of being shot, for one. Even before then there were bad memories, things he shouldn't remember for his age.

Chas and Paddy were in with him. When the doctor had said he was alright for visitors, they'd been the first in there, and as much as Robert wanted to see him he didn't have the energy for a fight.

All he could think of was what had happened in the woods. It had happened with the news of Katie's disappearance as well, and he really didn't want it to happen again. He knew, obviously, what panic attacks were, but he'd never experienced them, never had a reason too. The realisation made him feel weak – something he never wanted to feel again.

Feeling agitated, he got up, needing to go somewhere, anywhere.

It was a no brainer that he ended up outside of Aaron's room.

Through the window, he could see that he looked distressed; sad.

Robert felt the same.

“You don't understand,” he heard Aaron say. He realised the door was slightly open. “He kept me going when I was out there. Every time I felt like giving up and closing my eyes... I thought of him. He's what kept me alive.”

He was talking about _him_.

And God, if that didn't make it all worth it.

 

***

“You and me are never going to be friends,” Chas told him later. “But as long as you keep him happy, and you keep him safe. I'll back off. He loves you.”

“And I love him.”

“Then that's all that matters.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next three chapters are my favourites, and are the events I based this whole story around.  
> Buckle up.


	8. ...The harder the fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert takes a sudden interest in the post.

Aaron was a terrible patient.

“Can you just – Aaron, bloody sit down before I make ya!” Robert exclaimed.

He hadn't even been out of hospital a full twenty-four hours and was already keen to move around without his crutches, Robert having left him on his own at the Mill for an hour maximum before coming back to find him hobbling on one leg as he tried to make a cup of tea.

“It's a cup of tea, Robert, I'm not running a marathon,” he said, but let Robert guide him to the sofa nonetheless.

“You got that right,” Robert said, carefully resting Aaron's injured leg on a pillow placed on the coffee table. “So don't even think about going running again when you're off crutches.”

Aaron, huffing and rolling his eyes, said, “I made a promise-”

“Screw your promises, I think keeping you alive and safe is a little bit more important than a promise to my idiot of a brother.”

Robert was tense, had been since the second he'd known Aaron was missing, and he knew Aaron could see it; especially now, as he pulled Robert to him and ran a hand through his hair comfortingly.

“I'm fine, Robert,” he said. “Yeah, I've banged up my leg but I'm alright, aren't I, because you saved me.”

Robert didn't think he could take any form of hero-worship right now. “And if I hadn't-”

“But you didn't, so there's no point in thinking about any of that. It'll only drive you mad.”

He knew he was right.

Sighing, he rested his head against Aaron's shoulder. “That's the issue, it's all I _can_ think about. How could I have not known something was wrong? Or realised sooner?”

“There was nothing to _know_ , Robert, it was an accident.”

“But,” he started, “are you sure you weren't... overdoing it at all? Making yourself too tired to think about where you were putting your feet?”

“I told ya, it was an accident; I just slipped on a piece of icy ground and got my leg trapped.” He did know, but he didn't want to think about what any of it meant. “None of this was your fault. You're gonna have to stop blaming yourself whenever anything goes wrong that's out of your control.”

Problem was, nothing was out of his control anymore. Yet he still managed to mess everything up.

“I know,” he lied. “I just worry about ya.”

Aaron smiled. “I'd be worried if you didn't. But you need to relax a little and trust that I can look after myself.”

Robert knew Aaron could look after himself, though. He'd seen Aaron get through more alone in a year than anyone else ever would in a lifetime, but these were forces beyond the two of them. Something was happening as he changed things, he could feel it like a twisting in his belly, curling his insides and making him nauseous. Something that Robert didn't think he could predict anymore. He hoped he was wrong.

Of course, he couldn't tell Aaron any of this. Instead, he went to put a movie on, but was interrupted by the arrival of his sister and Adam.

“Oi! Oi!” Adam bellowed as he banged the door open, making them both jump. “Look at you two, all cosy, almost makes me think you're just tryna skive on me now.”

Despite his words he had a bear-like grin, and walked around the back of the sofa to shake a hand round Aaron's head as Vic tutted from the doorway.

“Careful with him, he's just got out of hospital!” Vic said, voicing Robert's exact thoughts.

Adam waved a hand at her. “Unless he got his head all messed up when he fell, I'd say he'll survive,” he laughed and sat on the arm next to Aaron. “Speaking of getting out of hospital, how was your first night out?”

Aaron groaned and Robert couldn't help but crack a smile. Both he and Chas had been insistent that he stayed at the Woolpack, since Aaron had been sure he could make it up a set of stairs, and that morning Robert had had to almost carry him back down the stairs as the other man half grumbled, half blushed. As soon as he'd been out he had repeated again and again that he wouldn't sleep on a sofa like some cheating husband, he was going to sleep in the comfort of a bed. Chas had been the first to say that there was no way he was attempting to climb the Mill's death trap staircase – which Robert had been quick to agree on (because yes, he was mature enough to admit spiral staircases weren't always the most practical).

“Don't make me think about it,” he moaned, turning his head towards Robert and asking, “Are you sure I can't just stay here tonight?”

Robert scoffed, “Oh yeah, and sleep on the sofa?”

“I might.”

“And will have no thoughts at all of trying to sneak upstairs in the middle of the night, by yourself, unaided?” he asked, and he could see in Aaron's eyes that that was exactly what he was planning to do. “That's what I thought.”

“You worry too much about me to let anything bad happen to me here,” Aaron pointed out.

“Really?” he asked. “Because someone just told me I should _relax_ a bit more.”

Robert laughed as Aaron shoved him. Adam also seemed to be really enjoying this.

“Aw, aren't you two sweet?” he teased, and Aaron went to shove him as well, which he skilfully dodged.

Vic, who had been watching with a smile, settled herself into the arm chair opposite them. “Ya know, Robert's right. It's safer at the pub, and you've got more people around to help ya if you need it.”

Robert made a ' _thank you_ ' gesture towards his sister. “And you think you'd be happy to sleep in your own home,” he joked, but he saw Aaron frown. “Come on, it's only for a few weeks. If you push yourself you'll only extend that time.”

Aaron nodded, but he looked sombre. “S'pose you're right.”

Relieved, he patted Aaron on the leg, but turned to see Vic staring at him with an eyebrow raised.

They stayed together in the Mill for a few more hours until Adam announced he wanted a pint and dragged Aaron with him to the Woolpack, pretending to knock Aaron's crutches out from underneath him as they went, much to Robert's alarm.

When they had gone, though, Vic was quick to jump from the arm chair to the sofa; grinning gleefully. “Please tell me you're not being as dense as I think you are.”

Robert blinked at her. “What?”

“Aaron!” she exclaimed, as if that was supposed to help make what she was saying make anymore sense. To Robert's continued blank stare, she groaned and slapped him on the arm. “Obviously he wants to move in with you, you muppet!”

That was, had to be, _way_ too soon, didn't it? He remembered when they moved in together originally, in the summer of 2016. By then they'd known each other for so long, and they'd been _good_ a while, too, good enough for Aaron to trust him to make that step. Making that decision now – it would be too weird.

Wouldn't it?

“No,” he said. “That wasn't Aaron wanting to _live_ here, Vic, that was him trying to get away from his Mum.”

She slapped his arm again, harder this time, making Robert recoil from the pain. “ _Vic_! What the-”

“How do blokes ever have long lasting relationships if that is how you read someone's feelings?” she asked, incredulous. “Robert, he was devastated when you said he couldn't stay here tonight.”

“I'd hardly call frowning devastated, Vic,” he said, but when he thought about that exchange again...

“Do you not want him to move in?” she asked bluntly.

“It's not that,” he said. “I just... didn't think we were there yet, is all.”

Vic smiled at him. “I'm not saying you have to move him in right now, obviously, but you two seem so happy together; I'd hate it if you started getting your wires crossed so soon.”

Robert hummed, but his mind was moving a hundred miles a second. How could have been so stupid, thinking that Aaron wouldn't want to move in with him for another year? He had no reason not to trust him; no reason to want to wait. Even back then, they'd only been together officially for three months before they'd moved in together. Really, it was funny how little he'd thought about the actual relationship side of things that would have to be different.

“I'll think about it,” he said, meaning it.

 

***

Aaron moved in the second he was off crutches.

He'd looked shocked when Robert had asked him, like he'd thought they weren't on the same page with what stage they were at. It had made Robert think about what Vic had said about crossing wires, making him vow to himself that he wouldn't miss something as big as this again.

But, yes, he'd moved in fast and any misstep was forgotten. Chas had bitten her tongue, although it was obvious she wasn't all that happy about it, and Robert decided to call that progress.

The night Aaron moved in was... a long one, to say the least, in the most perfect way possible. Yet the next morning Robert had woken up to a very naked Aaron staring out the bedroom window, eyes glazed over like he was still asleep. When Robert had touched him on the shoulder to try and guide him back to bed he had looked around like he hadn't understood where he was.

But he'd snapped out of it fast and things were good, better than, so good that Robert had forgotten all about it.

So good, in fact, that Robert hadn't even glanced at the planner in weeks.

 

***

“Robert! Hold on a second!” Chas called, running down the street to where Robert was coming out of the café; just having had a meeting with Nicola about haulage and jobs and past experience. “Give these to Aaron when you see him,” she said, panting a little, handing over a bunch of letters.

“What are these?” he asked, looking at them blankly.

“A stack of a million quid,” she said. “It's his _mail_ Robert, ya know, when you put a letter in an envelope and-”

“Yes, I know what a letter is Chas,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Just didn't realise Aaron ever got this much.”

Aaron hadn't before. The only mail Aaron ever got were bills or from Scrapyard clients.

She shrugged. “Probably just spam.” Chas put her hands in her pockets and turned to leave, before seemingly thinking the better of it. “How was your birthday the other week?”

Robert smiled, unable to help himself. Birthdays had never been their strongest point when they were together before – or, at least, Robert's hadn't been. One of them, the one he would've just spent, had been with Chrissie and as nice as that had been Robert would take this version a thousand times over. The next birthday had passed with as little fan fair as possible, with it being so close to the end of the trial and the arrival of Liv. (Not that it had mattered, he'd spent the day with Vic until meeting up with a guilty-looking Aaron, who he'd reassured with a kiss on the forehead that it was okay; who cared about birthdays anyway). After that, obviously, had been spent in either awkward silence or painful conversation.

Now, he and Aaron had spent the day comfortably together, lazing around and eating cupcakes Aaron had bought on offer at Tesco's express, until they'd went out for drinks with Vic and Adam.

It was just nice to have a birthday spent with Aaron, really. It being one of the best he'd ever had was just a coincidence.

“It was really good,” he answered. “Aaron's a good boyfriend.”

She nodded, short and sharp. The air turned stilted.

“Look, I wasn't supposed to tell you this, but,” she bit her lip, “Katie called me yesterday.”

Robert raised his eyebrows, shocked. “Is she alright?”

“Yeah,” she said. Then, with more certainty, “She said she was. Sounded it, too.”

Honestly, he didn't know how to react. All he could think to ask was, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Dunno,” she said, suddenly looking confused. “Just felt right.”

A strange sensation spread through his spine, like his nerves were dancing catastrophically and ricocheting off each other as they moved. Or like they were running a race with no track lines, no lanes to stay in, and were kicking each other over and smacking wildly into each other's sides. The same feeling you'd get if someone was watching you.

“Right.” He swallowed. “Thanks for this.” He backed off as quick as he could, unable to shake the feeling that he needed to _run, run, run_.

That feeling stayed with him when he got back to the Mill. When he threw the mail on the coffee table, took out his laptop and began working on a trial-proposal for Nicola. Even after an hour, still sat at the table on his laptop, the hairs on the back of his neck were standing upright.

He couldn't take anymore of it. Robert slammed his laptop shut in frustration, stood from his chair and paced, running hands through his hair and down his shirt. What was all this leading up to? What was the next event, the goal, the thing that had to happen?

Like magnets, his eyes were drawn to the pile of mail.

It was a breach of trust, most certainly illegal and wrong. But he needed answers-

No. He didn't have to open them, just look at the return address, the date they were sent; anything else.

With shaking hands he spread the letters across the coffee table, so he could see all of them clearly. It didn't take him long to notice a pattern.

The first was sent on April 22nd , his birthday. The next was two days after that, the one after that was the same. From there, it became day after day after day. Again and again, all letters with the same company logo in the corner of the envelope.

Chas must have just let them collect dust for a while, not bothering to take them over until there was too many to ignore. But what could be so urgent that they sent a letter almost every day for over a week?

He looked at the logo again: a bunch of lotus flowers laying in an organised mess in a black square. No company he knew about used that, and almost every contact the Scrapyard had at this point had been set up by himself.

Not business related, then.

Maybe – maybe opening just one would be alright. There were so many of them, surely one had to be fine.

He looked at the clock; Aaron wouldn't be home for another hour at least.

Quickly, so he couldn't talk himself out of it, he opened the first letter.

 

_WINNER._

 

The word glared back at him, written in a deep red and about three times the font size of the rest of the text.

Robert frowned. Aaron hadn't told him he'd entered a competition.

 

_Dear Mr. Livsey,_

_Congratulations! You are one of the lucky winners of last months gift exchange. In the summer, at a date of your choosing, you and a friend have the chance to spend an all-prices-paid weekend in one of our luxurious woodland lodges!_

 

_Luxurious woodland lodges!_

_Luxurious woodland lodges!_

_Luxurious woodland lodges!_

 

Robert read the line again and again, replaying it like a broken record. It couldn't be the same one. There was no reason for it to be, that lodge hadn't been part of a company like this, it _couldn't_ be-

But there it was – the exact same address, written at the bottom of the letter. Underneath that, in smaller print, was this:

_Available only in July._

Not thinking at all, Robert reached for the letter closest to him; begging something, anything, in this one to stop the feeling of dread seeping into his bones.

 _WINNER_ , it stared at him menacingly.

Another one ripped open, another _WINNER._

Again,

 _WINNER_.

Again,

_WINNER._

_WINNER._

_WINNER._

_WINNER._

 

The letters all lay on the floor, staring at him, taunting him. Aaron would be home soon, and if he saw these he'd want to go, he'd want to know why he'd opened them, he'd ask questions Robert couldn't answer.

Crumbling them all up into his hands, he carried them to the bin and took extra care in ripping them all to shreds, until no readable trace was left in any of them.

The act reminded him of the flames the 2014 planner had produced; the smoke afterwards.

He hid the pieces under wet paper towels and closed the lid.

 

***

A letter came every week.

The first one Chas delivered again, while Aaron had been on a scrap run, and Robert had been quick to get rid of it; burning it like he'd burnt the planner.

After that they came with the rest of the post. Robert found himself turning it into a game with himself: how early could he get up and get the mail before Aaron noticed something was going on?

Turns out, until mid-June.

Aaron woke up before him, and Robert found him sat on the sofa with his arms crossed grumpily. Quickly, Robert looked for any sign that he had opened the letter or gotten the mail in – but there were none. Sighing internally, he sat down next to his boyfriend.

“What are you doing up so early?” Robert asked.

“Could ask you the same thing,” Aaron grumbled. “But you're up this time every day these days.”

For a moment, Robert was stunned. He'd always go back to bed after he'd gotten rid of the letter, just so Aaron wouldn't ask questions just like this.

“Sometimes,” he said carefully. “But I always come back to bed-”

“Yeah, but _why_ Robert?” he spat, looking at him with an iron-clad stare. “What could you possibly be doing every morning for a few minutes?”

Robert's mouth was working before his brain. “Work. The new jobs stressing me out, so sometimes I wake up early and get a little extra done, that's all.”

Aaron kept his stare steady. “I don't like people lying to me.”

“I'm not,” he said, feeling himself cringe. “Things have just been crazy recently, what with Katie going and Andy hating me and now this new job. It's been hard to sleep.” That, at least, was true. “And I didn't want to tell ya 'cause you've been doing so much to support me already, I can't just keep piling my issues onto ya.”

Robert watched Aaron soften in the same way you'd watch an ice cube melt. “You shouldn't feel like that, ever. I'm supposed to support you.” He smiled at him. “And you've done plenty for me: helping me set up the Scrapyard with Adam, forgiving me when I'm being an idiot, finding me in those woods.”

“Not the same as you coaching me through every mental breakdown I have, though, is it?”

“No, but maybe one day you'll get to return that favour.” He said it lightly, but it made Robert remember how close it was to Gordon's arrival; how much it would hurt to watch it happen again. “Honestly, me and you deserve a holiday after all this.”

Robert chuckled. “I wouldn't argue against it.”

“I'm serious,” Aaron said excitedly. “We should go away for a bit, just you and me. Maybe in the summer.”

And Robert could feel himself start going into meltdown – but he stopped himself before he spiralled, breathing deeply. He had control here. This was his decision.

“It would be better to go in November,” he said. “Plane prices are lower, so we could go abroad if we wanted. Somewhere in Spain, maybe, as long as it's not Ibiza.”

The suggestion seemed to take a second for Aaron to process. His eyes moved across Robert's face rapidly, almost like when someone was dreaming.

But he shook himself together, literally, and smiled. “I'd love to. I've always wanted to go to Barcelona.”

“Barcelona it is then,” he said, beaming.

_Fuck you, universe._

 

***

The village was always at it's most alive in the summer, but it had never been so much so as it was now, with the events of Pete and Debbie's wedding leaving bright colours all over the place. Last time he'd been too wrapped up in his depressive bubble to look at it properly, just being dumped and outed and all that, so he appreciated it now as he and Aaron walked together to the village hall.

Granted, things weren't going to be so cheery in about an hour, if Debbie was still a cheat, so he supposed he really should enjoy the atmosphere while it lasted.

“Imagine putting this much energy into getting married,” Aaron said, disgusted, as they watched the merry-go-round spin. “It's one day of ya life, why spend so much money and time on it? If me and you ever do it, we're getting the papers signed and going to the pub afterwards.”

“If we ever do it?” Robert teased, taking pleasure in the way Aaron's face turned red. “You got any plans I should be worried about?”

“No.” Aaron nudged him playfully. “That was a very, _very_ big 'if', by the way. Before you get any ideas.”

Robert laughed. “I just got out of an engagement, who says I want to rush back into another one?”

For a moment, he worried that that was the wrong thing to say. But Aaron kept smiling. “Well, at least we won't be giving my mother a heart attack any time soon.”

And it meant that Robert could keep the day they got engaged the same, except maybe making it more of a success and less of a literal car crash this time. 

If fate would let him.

Robert brushed his hand against Aaron's, just to see what he would do. Aaron was never one for public hand holding, but maybe, as the day was so nice...

Aaron looked down at what he was doing and rolled his eyes; taking his hand. “Don't get too excited,” he said when he saw Robert grinning. “It's not happening again.”

Robert only squeezed their conjoined hands, swinging them slightly. The village hall was just up the road now, Robert could see Vic on her phone as she went inside.

He could see something else, too.

Blonde hair. Streaming through the wind. He didn't see a face, or clothes or height. Really, it could have been anyone.

But he'd seen enough.

 

***

“What are you doing here?” he barked, having followed her all the way to the Scrapyard. “I thought you weren't coming back?”

“You'd like that, wouldn't ya?” she said, turning to look at him; her eyes full of tears. “Never having to see me again?”

The thought of her dead body emerged again and he tried to soften himself. “Of course not,” he said, moving slowly towards her. “But what are you...,” he trailed off when he saw what she was stood in front of – an Audi R8.

It wasn't Robert's, and that wasn't said in some act of denial, it was a darker shade of grey and the side door windows were tinted. But an Audi R8 regardless.

“What's that doing here?” He already knew the answer, but he didn't _understand._ “Katie, where did you even _get_ that from?”

“Rented it,” she said dismissively, as if he was asking the wrong questions. “It had to be this type of car, she said.”

 _She_ . “Who said?” No response. “ _Who_ said it, Katie?”

“That doesn't matter. None of it matters, there's only this now.”

There was a lighter in her hand. He hadn't seen it before but now he could, clasped so tightly in her hand her knuckles were turning white.

“Katie-”

One second it was in her hand, the next it was in the car, setting it ablaze.

Katie fell back and Robert went to catch her, moving her away from the quickly growing flames.

There was no time to panic. No room to, no matter how quickly he was becoming deaf from the roaring and his arms started to feel like dead weights. Because suddenly the car was exploding and the Portacabin was hit and then there was a scream and Katie was unconscious _and and and and and_

Adam, it was Adam, he remembered now. He had to get him out, he had to move Katie out of the way, had to stop the

_helicopter_

The smoke was getting thicker, blacker, but he could see it now. It looked so close, like he could touch it.

Because it was falling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, dunnnn…
> 
> Cliffhangers are gonna be a reoccurring theme in these next few chapters.


	9. Dead and Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert buries his head in the sand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow I'm going to Berlin with my Sixth Form, so you get this a day early!  
> Also, this one is so short to compensate for the size the next one is going to be...

Robert dragged Adam out of the Portacabin, while he groaned that his head hurt from the blast and feeling like he weighed a tonne of bricks. He settled him down next to Katie away from the fire, where she was now awake and sobbing; her cries piercing the ongoing roaring of the flames.

She grabbed him after he'd put Adam down, holding his arm as tightly as she'd held the lighter, and began to shiver and shake with the power of her tears.

“Why did I do that?” she gasped, having cried so hard her mouth was wet; as if she was drowning in her own sadness. “ _Robert, why did I do that_ – I didn't want to do it, I-” she collapsed against him and Robert could only stand there, frozen, with no clue what to do. “I don't even-even _remember.._ ”

And that was even worse, wasn't it?

In the distance, he could see the gathering dust in the sky from where the helicopter had landed. It was too late to try and stop anything now the damage had been done. The knowledge of that hadn't sunk in yet, but he knew it would, like lead in his bones. But for right now, all he needed was to get over there.

Shaking Katie off as nicely as possible, he ran for the fire extinguisher he knew was in the Portacabin, holding his breath as he got close to the flames while putting them out; the angry red turning into a grumpy black.

It looked like Katie was going to be paying a hefty fine.

He looked at her again, as she sat sullenly on the ground. Adam was watching her too, in the way you'd watch a wild animal, like he wasn't really sure what to say to her. Robert could relate.

“Katie,” he said gently. He rested on his knees beside her while keeping an eye on the direction of the village hall, as if looking could make any difference at all. “I need to get over to the village, but... When you said she, who did you mean?”

She raised her head up to look at him, tearful eyes vacant and confused. “I don't know.”

“Just try and remember,” he urged, impatient. “I know you're in shock, and your heads a bit fuzzy, but I need you to think really hard.”

She started to shake her head, her eye's filling with a fresh wave of tears. “I don't know. I don't remember any of it: renting the car, the lady, getting to the village. I know I did it, but...”

She sank even further onto the ground, but Robert didn't think he had the willpower to try and comfort her. “Adam, use my phone,” he said, throwing it carelessly at him. “Make an emergency call to the police, or for an ambulance, or whatever it is you think you need, okay?”

Adam nodded at him, and Robert started to run.

 

***

He ran until his chest was burning and his legs were throbbing. It was numbing in a good way, the pain, another thing to keep his mind off his failure. In fact, focusing on it kept his mind completely blank – until suddenly he was colliding chest-to-chest with his sister.

“Robert!” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck tightly. “Thank God you're alright!”

“I wasn't in the building,” he started. Trouble was, he had no idea how to finish.

He didn't have to, though, because the next thing he knew was that Aaron, covered in dust and with tearful eyes, was running towards him. Robert quickly shrugged off his sister and threw himself at him, pushing their mouths together passionately, not for the act of kissing but to physically reassure himself that he was safe.

When they pulled apart Aaron pressed their foreheads together and held Robert close to him. “I-I didn't know where you were,” he stammered. “I thought... Robert, I thought you might've been-”

“I'm alright, I wasn't in there,” Robert said quickly. “I was at the Scrapyard, I'm okay.”

Aaron pulled back a little, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Why were you at the Scrapyard? I thought you said you'd forgotten summat.”

And even in his numb, shocked state, Robert could still think quickly. “I did,” he said. “I was on my way back to the Mill, but then I saw Katie walking through the village and went after her.”

Aaron just looked more confused. “Why?”

“I don't know,” he said honestly, but was hauntingly reminded of Katie's own words earlier; her own confusion. “But I followed her to the Scrapyard, and she set fire to some random car.” Aaron started to react, but Robert kept going. “It went up in flames fast. So fast. There was so much smoke, and then something exploded and Adam got hurt-”

“ _Adam_?” he heard his sister gasp. He'd forgotten she was there. “Was he alright? Where is he now?”

“He hurt his leg, I think, maybe his head too. I left him up there with Katie.” Vic looked pissed. “I gave him my phone to call an ambulance, and Katie was... not in a state to try and hurt him, he'll be fine.”

“What does that mean?” Vic asked, but before Robert could respond they heard Andy call them.

He was standing next to where the ambulances were beginning to form, looking worse for wear. Behind him, Diane was being placed onto a stretcher; blood pouring from all sorts of places on her body as she screamed and cried incoherently. But it didn't matter that the wails emitting from her mouth were scrabbled by the pain, the blood, the tears. Because Robert knew, had known since he'd first seen the helicopter, what she had to be trying to say.

Again he took of running, Andy and Vic letting out disappointed cries while Aaron, as always, followed him without question. Somehow, during the sprint, he'd managed to convince himself that maybe he'd make it in enough time to make a difference. That maybe he wasn't a complete failure after all.

But the universe wasn't kind enough to allow that to happen.

The mirror maze was a crushed, mess of a thing. From where he and Aaron had stopped it was hard to see exactly what had made it happen, but it didn't take a genius to figure it out.

There were firemen trying desperately to get back in, the entrance they'd used to get Diane out having collapsed in on itself. Together they watched as they continued to struggle, until they managed to find a safe way in; suited and booted as they carried another stretcher inside.

“Oh, God,” Aaron said, and Robert had to agree. “Who'd you thinks in there?”

The stretcher resurfaced, this time the body laying on it not bleeding or screaming but covered under a black sheet.

“Val.”

_Dead and gone._

 

***

Katie had vanished again.

That evening at the hospital Adam had revealed that not long after Robert had left she'd shaken herself, like someone trying to wake themselves up, and simply got up and walked away, Adam being in too much pain to stop her.

The police deemed quickly that the flames were the source of the crash, the helicopter driver having died from a heart attack as he breathed in the thick smoke. Katie wouldn't be wanted for murder, of course, but she had destroyed a rented car on private property; causing several people to get hurt and die. She was wanted by the police, who had interviewed almost everyone in the village for information on where she might be – even Andy, who had been shocked and confused and (being himself) had found a way to pin this on Robert; muttering under his breath in the pub one night that Robert had driven her to insanity, somehow. Strangely, Chas had been the one to defend Robert, telling Andy that once the police had found her she could justify her actions herself.

So why _hadn't_ the police found her? At least, that was the question running through the village in the weeks after. 

Katie wasn't smart enough to know how to get a fake passport, or brave enough to think of going abroad in the first place. She had to still be in the country somewhere, but there had been news coverage on what had happened for weeks and her face had been plastered all over it, and there were CCTV cameras everywhere these days. So how could she _possibly_ be hiding?

For the first two weeks that was all Robert could think about. But soon after it became clear they weren't going to find her anytime soon, he realised he was being stupid. He needed to plan his next move; discover the next big event. He needed to be faster, and he needed to be smarter.

To do that, he needed to go through his planner again.

But he couldn't find it anywhere

After the first day of not being able to find it he decided not to panic, to refuse to spiral, allowing himself to have a date night with Aaron in Hotten. But a day become two, then three, until eventually a week had gone by and Robert had run out of places to look.

The second he started to panic was like his whole brain had been replaced. He couldn't remember the last time he had it, not even the last thing he'd written in there. You'd think that would be fine, that he could cope without it, but no – his whole recollection of what was going to happen next was an intangible mess. He knew, deep down, that this was because of the stress of it all, that he needed to relax if he wanted a clear head, but...

Needing the planner to move forward wasn't even the worst part, was it? If someone found it... he was finished. Because how the hell could he explain _that_ to someone, without coming across like a total nutcase? Where would he even _begin?_

So the thought of it out there somewhere, laying on the floor of the pub or buried under mud at Butler's farm, kept him up at night for the whole month after he realised it was missing.

And Aaron started to notice.

“I was thinking we could go to the pub for tea tonight,” Aaron said, his voice suppressed in a way that made it sound false. Really, it was probably more to do with the fact that Robert was on his hands and knees on the living room floor and had been for an hour, but that didn't stop him from getting paranoid. “My mum's been asking about ya.”

Robert hummed non-committally. “Sure,” he said. “Let me just find something first.”

“Find what?” Aaron asked. Robert could hear his footsteps as he walked closer to him.

“My planner.” He heard Aaron snort. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, but there was almost definitely _something_.

“No, go on.” Robert lifted his head from where he was searching under the sofa. “Share the joke with the audience.”

Aaron rolled his eyes. It was an act that Robert would usually find endearing, but now it just made him annoyed. “You've been saying that for weeks, that you need to find your planner. Just funny, the fact that you're going crazy over a _diary._ ”

“It's not a _diary_.”

“Yeah, whatever, but it's not exactly a big enough deal to warrant your behaviour over the past few weeks.” And that _really_ pissed him off, because how could Aaron have any clue what he had been going through, or why? “You're restless at night, you act all stand-offish during the day. You never tell me what's wrong anymore, Robert. I shouldn't have to beg ya to talk to me as much as I do!”

“Well, maybe that's because I _can't_ talk to you, have you ever thought about that?” he shouted, not realising the gravity of what he was saying.

But Aaron wasn't going to take that, apparently. “Why?” he asked, shoulder's bunched and arms crossed. _No nonsense_. “Why can't you talk to me? What could possibly be so bad that, after everything you've told me already, you don't think you can talk to me about?”

Robert didn't think he could answer that. Instead, he childishly put his head back under the sofa, brushing past a growing collection of crumbs ( _Adam_ ) to see down the back.

Aaron wasn't budging.

“Is this about Katie?”

Robert groaned. “ _God no_ , Aaron. I've told ya already-”

“Then tell me again, looking me straight in the face, 'cause I don't believe.” And Robert did, after hearing the hurt in his voice. But that seemed to make him more frustrated. “Then _what_?”

Again, he couldn't answer that. He put his head back under the sofa.

Aaron huffed. “Unbelievable.” He walked towards the door and grabbed his coat.

Robert instantly felt guilty. “Aaron, wait-”

“I'll be at the pub, in case you wanna come along and act like a normal human being for once in your life.”

With that he slammed the door, making it rattle. Robert heard him give the main entrance a similar treatment.

Robert knew he was in the wrong. That he shouldn't have said what he said, or gotten angry, or given some sort of explanation. Aaron had been nothing but supportive of him through everything and didn't deserve Robert's ambivalence.

He remembered how Aaron had held him at the cricket pavilion, when there relationship was still new and Aaron had had no right to be as kind and understanding as he had been.

God, Robert was an _idiot_.

Still, he let himself stew for an hour, bitter that Aaron couldn't just _see_ that his attitude was about more than the stupid planner, that he needed Robert to give him words that explained it when he had none to give. The sky had just gotten dark when he finally decided to head over there, and it was close enough to October that the air was getting that biting chill back again, making him do up his coat just that little bit higher.

Chas was outside the Woolpack when he got there, throwing some empty bottles into the bin. She tutted when she saw him.

“Been slagging me off in there, has he?” he asked. Just because he was in the wrong didn't mean he had to be _nice_ about it.

“Yeah, and rightly so.” She tutted again. “That boy loves you, you know, and, as much as I may dislike it, I know you love him too. He just wants to help ya.”

“I know,” he said, and sighed. “I'm not very good at asking for help. Sometimes it feels wrong, him supporting me as much as he does.”

“Then you're even more of an idiot than I thought you were.” They both laughed, and it was nice. Friendly, even. Nowhere near where they'd been when this had really happened.

Wait.

 _When this had really happened_.

“Come on, lets get ya inside,” Chas said, not noticing how Robert had frozen. “He's been sitting there with one pint for an hour, maybe you can convince him to get some more down him and increase my profit.”

Robert looked around, trying to find a sign. What day was it?

Suddenly, the air was being punched out of his chest.

There was just, “ _Robert_!”

And only the stars in the sky, _blue, blue, blue._

Or maybe that was Aaron's eyes, streaming with tears.

Wearily, Robert looked down to see a trail of blood cascading down his coat. Aaron's hands were there, pressing down on him, keeping him alive.

 _Oh, right_.

He'd been shot.

 

***

_Beep._

There was a weight on Robert's head, he was sure of it. Keeping his eyes closed and his mouth shut. It was all over him, the weight, like he was trapped under concrete. Any second now his head would explode from the pressure of it, and all that would be left of him was a headless body laying in the cosmos, he was sure of it.

He was just thankful he could still breath.

_Beep._

Everything else felt dry. Like he'd been bathing in the Sahara Desert for a week, and now his body was crisp and his tongue had turned to dust.

He needed a drink. A piss. A shower. But his body refused to move.

 _Beep_.

For the longest time it remained like that: still, heavy, dry. Then,

 _Beep_.

One flicker of his eyes, and bright light seeped in and seared them.

(Maybe he was in a Desert after all.)

But then he could manage two, then three, four.

Then, a voice.

“Robert?”

 _Aaron_. He had been so mean to him, he remembered now. He needed to apologise, he needed to-

 _Beep_.

“Robert, can you hear me?”

His eyes opened and stayed there. For a second the world was trapped in a filter of haze, but eventually he could make out Aaron's face: scruffy and beautiful. He was sat on the edge of his hospital bed, the picture of concerned boyfriend. But something was wrong. The more he looked at him the more he knew it, there was something he was seeing that he didn't like.

He just couldn't remember.

“Do you remember what happened?” Aaron asked, voice soft.

There were bits. The argument. The pub. Chas. Getting shot.

The planner.

Right, that was the issue. Aaron had the planner on his lap, resting wide open on his knees.

He'd been reading it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaannnddddd this is where things change.  
> Just like Robert, I believe in turning points. We've reached this fic's turning point.  
> Next chapter: the four weeks of Robert's coma, in Aaron's POV.


	10. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron finds something he probably shouldn't have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really thought I wasn't going to get this out today, but thankfully I continue to underestimate myself, haha.  
> I'd also like to just continually thank everyone that's reading this and commenting and leaving kudos. It means the world.

Eric was slumped in the corner of the pub, looking downtrodden, ruffled and, well, like a man who's wife had just died. Aaron had been watching him since he'd arrived, considering maybe saying something to him, or maybe saying nothing at all. It seemed most days in the village it was someone's turn to grieve; to sit in the pub with a pint they either weren't planning on drinking or were going to drink too much of. He supposed by now everyone else had become numb to it, each other's grief, since they'd seen it so much. But not Aaron. Because Aaron _knew_ grief. He'd felt it a thousand times and in a million different ways, had met it in quiet company in hospital rooms and graveyards and in his bedroom late at night. He figured, for a second, that maybe he would be able to say something that could make the grief seem easier. 

If he wasn't feeling so downtrodden himself, he might've. See, in the village there was also turn-taking on who got to sit in the pub with a pint and stare depressively into a wall as they thought about their love life. And tonight was Aaron's lucky night. 

He turned his head away from Eric and towards his pint, which had begun to go flat from not being touched for so long, and pretended to take a sip of it as he watched his Mum roll her eyes at him. She had a crate of empty bottles in her hands, and almost slammed straight into Vic as she went round the back.

“What's her problem?” Vic asked, folding her arms across the counter top. If he _had_ been drinking his pint, he might've let slip that his Mum had been begging him to go home and sort things out with Robert since the second he sat down. Then, he would've had Vic on his back as well, being Robert's sister, and Aaron thanked himself for his petty sobriety. 

Because how could he sort it out when he didn't know what it was he was sorting? Robert had always had a certain sense of ambiguity around him. That was part of what had made him attractive, at the start, that at one second he could be kind and trying his best to settle himself, then the next threatening Ross in the garage – not only threatening him, but threatening him for Aaron's sake. He knew it sounded stupid, but at times it felt like Robert would be good or bad based on _Aaron_ , on what he needed and wanted. And that was fun for a while, until suddenly he didn't know if Robert would be in a good or bad mood that day, if he would be free to go out with him, if he would be _present_ in the room. Until it felt like things weren't just about Aaron anymore. 

Maybe it was selfish to think that way, when it was obvious that Robert was struggling with something. Maybe it would be easier to not be if he knew _why_.

He shrugged at Vic and took a real gulp of his pint, watching as she glanced behind him and at Eric before quickly looking away again. Aaron took a quick look himself. “Have you heard how he's doing?”

“Not well, apparently,” she said, fiddling with her Chefs uniform. “Finn's been trying to lift his spirits, or so he tells me. Try and remind him that deaths a part of life and all that.”

Aaron hummed. “Don't think he really cares about the cycle of life right now.”

“Maybe he should. Maybe we _all_ should. Might make us more grateful for what we have when we have it, if we remember everything has to end at some point.”

Aaron hummed again. Robert said stuff like that sometimes: that we should appreciate the moment while we're in it. Maybe it was a family belief. Aaron considered commenting that it was too early in the evening to be talking about stuff like this, but took another look at Eric and held his tongue. Usually, Aaron would mock and tease this sort of stuff but this time it got him thinking – would it be so bad if he went home and just _tried_? 

He was about to down the rest of his pint when they all heard the gun shot.

 

***

At first, he hadn't seen much at all. There had only been the sound of Vic wailing and screaming and crying, and the sight of his Mum on her knees, tears streaming out of her eyes. It was dark out, dark enough that the body on the floor was nothing more than a black lump for a moment. Then, all he could see was Robert.

Aaron's own knees had hit the ground with a heavy thump as his body lurched forward and covered Robert's, as if he could keep him alive simply by keeping him as close to himself as humanly possible and out of sight from everyone else. There was blood seeping from his shoulder, out of the hole the bullet had left in his coat, but Aaron knew that if he looked at that for anymore than a second he'd throw up, so he covered it with his shaking hand and used the other to touch Robert's face, caressing it.

“You need to use both hands.” It was his Mum's voice, but it was distant and strained. “He'll lose too much blood if you don't.” 

“Hold on,” he said, choking on it, not really knowing who exactly he was talking to. “Just-just let me, let me...” Robert's face was wet, and Aaron wondered if the pain had made him cry; if it had hurt that much. It took him a second to realise that the tears were his own. “Robert I need you to stay with me, okay? I need ya to just wait a second and stay with me. You can do that for me, can't ya?” Apart from the small flicker of his eye's, the only sign he was still alive, there was no response. He heard Vic sobbing beside him, but he blocked it out and kept focusing on Robert's face, putting more pressure onto his wound. “You said you wanted to get to know me. At Bar West. Do you remember that? Cause I do. And there's still so much about me you don't know, so much that I want to tell ya. So-so you have to stay with me, don't ya, so I can tell ya everything.”

Aaron was pretty sure he could hear sirens now, but that did nothing to ease the pain he felt when Robert still said nothing. 

“ _Please_ ,” was all he could manage to get out. “ _Please, please, please._ I love you, I love you so much, please stay with me. _Please._ ”

He wanted to beg and plead until Robert opened his eyes. He wanted to replace the blood that was seeping out and covering his hand with his own, using his own heart as Robert's life force. He wanted so many things, but most of all to tell Robert all of them; to write novels about each one, just for Robert to read. But before he could say any of that, Paramedics were pushing him out of the way and when he tried to fight them off, to keep Robert with him, Vic and his Mum held him tight, letting them rush Robert into an ambulance and away from him.

 

***

It had almost been seventy-two hours since Robert was shot.

Seventy-two hours without seeing him (since he wasn't family, apparently, the _bastards_ ) and knowing only that he was out of surgery, he couldn't breathe on his own and was going to be in a coma for the foreseeable future. But it didn't take a genius to figure out that whether or not Robert was going to be waking up _at all_ was based on the next couple of days, hours, minutes. So it should've been obvious to the Police that Aaron wasn't exactly in the mood to have questions slammed down his throat.

Apparently not.

“Mr. Livesy, where were you on the evening of September 25th?” asked one of them, a female officer with her dark hair tied in a very tight ponytail. Two had come to the hospital earlier that day, and Aaron had flat out refused to leave the waiting room until his Mum had forced him; saying that resisting only made him look guilty of something. They'd then dragged him to an empty room, where they were questioning him now.

“In the pub,” he said, although unhappily. “Vic, Robert's sister, was behind the bar. We both heard the gun shot together.”

“And this pub was the Woolpack, the building Mr. Sugden was shot in front of, correct?”

Aaron gave her a look that said _duh_ and the officer curled her lip at him, then scribbled something in her little notebook. 

The other, a man, took his turn to speak, “We've been made aware that you and Mr. Sugden are currently in a relationship and living together.” Aaron nodded. “And how was your relationship with Mr. Sugden in the past few weeks? Did the two of you ever have any notable arguments?”

_ Notable arguments _ . Aaron scoffed, “Are you tryna suggest that I had something to do with this?”

“No,” the woman said quickly. Too quickly. “We're just looking into any and all possibilities. But whether or not you were very close to Mr. Sugden recently could aid the investigation. Do you know if he had any enemies who may wish to harm him? Did he receive any threatening notes within the past few weeks? Or if he exhibited any behaviour that was odd?”

“He had been acting weird lately,” Aaron said, thinking back on the last few weeks. “Spaced out. Jumpy. But I think that was more to do with the accident that happened in the village last month than any threats.”

The man gave a short nod. “Yes, we're looking into security footage in Hotten and Leeds to determine if Katie Sugden was in the area around the time of the shooting. We've also been into contact with Chrissie White, Mr. Sugden's previous fiancée. Are there any other individuals you can think of that could have been involved?”

For a moment, Aaron considered bringing up Andy. But that was ridiculous – family didn't do stuff like that, did they? No matter how much you hated them. Instead, he shook his head no.

The officers thanked him in unison and Aaron turned to leave, but the man stopped him. 

“Actually, I have one more question if you don't mind?”

He  _did_ mind. The only thing he didn't particularly mind at the minute was Robert waking up and all of this disappearing into the ethos. But that didn't look like it was going to be happening any time soon.

“The case of Jackson Walsh was brought to our attention...,” the officer started, and Aaron's heart froze. He continued to speak, but he could hardly hear him. Really, he didn't need to. He could already guess where this was going.

“I don't see how that has any relevance to this,” Aaron spat at them.

“Are you saying that any similarity between the two is a coincidence?” the woman asked, both coldly and with eagerness, as if this was what she had been waiting to ask all along.

“Jackson had an _accident_ , Robert's just been shot by some asshole that wants him dead. There are no bloody similarities. Except-”

“Your involvement.”

Aaron could only stare at them, bile rising in his throat. This couldn't be happening. They couldn't honestly believe that Aaron...

“I had nothing to do with Robert being shot. And the more time you spend asking me questions that have nothing to do with any of this, the more time you're gonna waste.”

Aaron stormed off, ignoring the calls of “Mr. Livesy!” coming from the room behind him; not stopping until he was outside Robert's room, pacing back and forth. 

He hadn't gone home since arriving at the hospital, but he hadn't been able to feel the strain of it until now that his heart was racing and his body felt more with it than it had in the past three days. Since the shooting it had been like his mind was being controlled by someone else; like if he allowed himself to think then the possibility that Robert could die would carve a place inside of him. And he didn't know if he could get it out again if that happened. 

But now  _all_ he could do was think. 

“Aaron?”

What if they arrested him, and Robert woke up and believed he'd done it? 

“Aaron?”

What if he hated him? 

“Aaron?”

What if Robert didn't wake up at all?

“ _Aaron!”_

A hand was on his shoulder, and Aaron felt himself move to swing at whoever it was – but it was Vic, wide eyed and her blonde hair frazzled and unkempt. She hadn't left the hospital this whole time, either. He supposed that was affecting the two of them differently. 

“Aaron,” she said again, this time with more uncertainty; like she wasn't sure if Aaron was going to land that punch he'd been preparing to deliver. Aaron looked down at his hands, where one was gripping her wrist hardly and his other was still bawled up and bent towards her. He dropped both.

“I was just...,” she tried again. “The doctors said you're allowed to see him now.” Aaron nodded and went to move, but she stood in front of him. “Aaron, are you sure you're alright?”

“Are _you_?” he snapped back. “I just need to see him. Maybe... I'll feel better once I've seen him.”

Vic nodded and let him through. Neither of them mentioned how she didn't seem very convinced.

 

***

If Robert wasn't connected to a million different devices, then maybe Aaron could've pretended he was only asleep. But even then, this wasn't how Robert slept: on his back, completely still, with only the small sounds of his breathing present in the room. No, he was just as active in his slumber as he was in the day; his legs would sprawl and kick and bend until Aaron would have to try and trap them with his own, his arms would always be reaching and searching for Aaron, like he was afraid he would leave him in the night, and he snored like a screaming banshee. In fact, Robert was so still it was unsettling, and the wires and tubes only reminded him of other things – things he didn't want to associate with Robert.

During those seventy-two hours, he'd thought when he finally got to see Robert he'd sit by him, hold his hand, and refuse to leave until he'd woken up. Now, his legs were glued to the floor by the door and all he wanted was to  _get out, get out, get out_ . 

But he had to say  _something_ . Even now there was so much he wanted to say. 

“Robert,” he said, voice dry. When was the last time he drank something? He couldn't remember. “I'm sorry for yelling at ya. I'm sorry for trying to push ya into telling me things. I'm sorry that... that I let this happen. I-I'm so, _so_ sorry.”

It wasn't what he'd wanted to say at all. The words had felt wrong when they'd left his mouth, but he couldn't quite pin-point why. What he did know, though, was that if he stayed in that room any longer he'd burst into tears. 

He ran out the door and took a taxi back to the village.

 

***

He'd stayed at the Woolpack for the last two nights. Seeing the Mill had made his stomach churn, and trying to set a foot inside of it had sent violent tremors across his body, making him sure he would die there and then. Aaron hadn't even been able to get himself a change of clothes, he'd had to give his Mum a key to do that. The clothes she'd come back with were fine, all except for the underwear, which an outsider wouldn't know immediately were Robert's but to Aaron the snug, expensive feel to them would always give them away. Maybe it was weird, but Aaron liked wearing them. If he couldn't handle being near Robert right now, then at least he could keep him close in a different way. 

He'd been sleeping on the sofa, since his old room here held memories of Robert too. Really, he hadn't moved from there since he'd arrived. Like now, he was laying on his side as the TV played mindlessly in the background. Aaron was looking through his phone, another thing he'd been avoiding. There were countless messages from clients that he screenshotted and sent to Adam to deal with, but the one that made him pause was a message from Robert. It was sent the day before he'd gotten shot; Aaron must've not seen the notification. He didn't think twice before opening it. 

It was another screenshot – from a hotel booking page, confirming a one week stay in November. Aaron had completely forgotten about their trip to Barcelona. That conversation felt like a life time ago, now. Underneath the screenshot Robert had sent a plethora of love heart emojis, and the sight of them shouldn't have made him as emotional as they did. 

Just then, his Mum came through the back door and Aaron was quick to put his phone down and wipe away at his tearful eyes. She smiled when she saw him, but that smile didn't last long.

“Hiya, love,” she said carefully. “Would've thought you'd be back up at the hospital by now. Or at least back at work.”

“Didn't much feel like it,” he grumbled. 

His mum sat herself down at the end of the sofa. “Hospital or work?”

He shrugged. “Both, I s'pose.”

She sighed and placed a comforting hand on his leg. “Ya know, the police called me in for questioning yesterday.”

That made Aaron snap his head up. “They can't really think  _you_ had something to do with it, can they?”

“No,” she said. “They did have a lot of questions about you, though.”

Aaron rolled his eyes. “Great, so they've convinced ya  _I_ had something to do with it.”

“No, of course not you muppet!” She swatted his leg. “But I'm guessing that your mood is to do with the questions they asked ya?”

“Oh yeah, cause I'm not upset _at all_ about the fact that my fella has just been shot-”

“If that were all it was, you'd be up there with him now,” she said. Aaron knew she was right. “Did they go all out trying to accuse ya?”

Reluctantly, Aaron shook his head. “Not exactly. And it's not even that that's bugging me. Obviously they're gonna have me as a suspect, cause it's always the boyfriend in these cases innit? It was just summat they said.”

“And what was that?”

“They...,” Aaron worried his bottom lip nervously. “They tried to link this to what happened with Jackson.”

Chas looked like she was about ready to burst through the roof. “They  _what_ ?” she asked, appalled. “How can they – there is literally no reason for them to even  _think_ -”

“Isn't there?”

His Mum blinked at him. “What?”

“Cause I thought that at first, ya know, that there was nothing about the two that was similar. But then... then I saw him for the first time since he was shot, and suddenly it was like I was seeing Jackson all over again. And then-then all I could say in there was that I was sorry for arguing with him, and you know why? Cause all I could think about was what I said to Jackson before the crash, about how I couldn't stop him there either.”

By now Aaron was sobbing, and Chas moved quickly; bringing him into her arms. “I thought you knew by now that what happened with Jackson wasn't your fault?”

“I did,” he said truthfully. “But now this... If I hadn't run off, if I'd stayed home and just tried to talk to him then maybe this wouldn't have happened.”

Chas ran a hand up and down Aaron's back in soothing circles. “Love, I'm sorry, but someone wants him dead. If it didn't happen then, it would've happened another time. There was nothing you could've done.”

“But the thought of that being the last time I spoke to him – I don't think I can handle it if it is.”

“Let me tell you something now,” she said, creating eye contact between them. “Robert Sugden is not dying in something as boring as a hospital room.” That brought laughter from them both. “And ya know something else? I spoke to him before he got shot, was the last person to speak to him actually. And he told me that he was coming there to apologise to you, because he loves ya and knows how much you love him. Now, I may not like him,” _An understatement,_ Aaron thought, “but I can appreciate that, and so should you. Robert wouldn't want you blaming yourself for this. So tomorrow, you're going to go home and shower and pack a bag of clean clothes and stay by him until he gets better. You think you can do that?”

Aaron nodded and smiled. “Yeah, I think I can.”

“Good,” she said, getting up. “As long as you're not doing anything you'll regret later.”

Before she left, she turned to him once more. “Oh, and don't worry about the police. You didn't do anything, it's not like they have anything to use against ya.”

 

***

Aaron didn't really know what to think about being back outside the Mill. He certainly didn't feel as sick as he had the other day, but there was still a sense of wrongness about being here without Robert. It had been his home first, after all, even if Aaron had helped put it together.

The inside was the worst part. Everything was how he and Robert had left it that day, even the sofa being pushed slightly ajar from where Robert had been searching underneath it. Seeing it brought back that guilt, but Aaron quickly reassured himself with what his Mum had said. All he should be focusing on at the minute was Robert waking up.

So he showered, using Robert's poncy shampoo and all. He may have taken a little longer than strictly necessary to take in the smell, just for a moment, but it wasn't like Robert would ever have to know, would he? He looked at himself in the mirror when he was done for the first time in a week. Anyone could see that he had barely slept, with the growing bags under his eyes and the new-found fuzziness in his beard, but at least he could say he was clean now. 

Next, he took a rucksack and packed some clean clothes to change into. He packed enough for a week, since he had no clue how much longer Robert would be comatose, and even thought about packing some for Robert. No, he decided, going through his clothes would feel too much like misery porn; he'd save that for when Robert woke up. 

Because he  _was_ going to wake up. Aaron had spent the night before convincing himself, drilling it into his head again and again like learning chemical equations, since he'd realised there was no point in all of this if he was convinced Robert was going to die. For his own sanity, he needed to be positive.

He was just about ready to leave, but...

The planner was sat on the kitchen table.

It hadn't been there when he'd arrived. Or at least, he didn't think he had been, but he had been spaced out, he supposed. Aaron stared at it as if it was going to disappear if he didn't concentrate hard enough, then looked around the rest of the house for any sign of change; anything that had moved. He even checked the front door as well as the main entrance to the Mill's building, but both were locked and neither looked as if anyone had forced there way in. Surely he would've heard if someone had, anyway? The walls weren't exactly that thin. 

He stared back at the planner, a range of emotions cascading through him. Firstly anger, because this was the thing that had caused the two of them to fight. Then hope, because maybe Robert had found it then, if it was sat here on the kitchen table? Mostly, though, there was sadness.

A part of him didn't want to look at it. Didn't want to invade Robert's privacy, even now. But another part of him, a larger and more aggressive part of himself, just wanted answers. And if Robert wasn't going to give them to him – and now  _couldn't_ give them to him – then what was the harm in getting them for himself? 

All he really noticed at first was the amount of colours used. The thought of it made him smile, Robert sat with his planner and his multiple pen colours as he went through the dates. It was when he actually read what was written in those colours did he begin to realise something was seriously wrong.

_ February 5th, 2015: Chrissie and I get married. I kill Katie. Aaron covers it up,  _ was written in black. The handwriting was scribbled, as if Robert had been in a rush when he'd written it, or like he was randomly writing thoughts as they came to him. Next to that, in a much more cramped green pen, was  _Aaron and I move in together. Family dinner – Katie has left Emmerdale._ There was also a blue star next to the date.

Aaron's mind whirled. He recognised the green, he'd  _lived_ the green, so of course he would, but why was that written last? The stuff written in black wouldn't have happened in a million years. Chrissie must have meant Chrissie White, he remembered the police officer telling him her name, just like he remembered Robert telling him that that was supposed to be the day he'd gotten married. But that couldn't... why would Robert even  _write_ that? 

He flipped through more of the planner. 

_ July 22nd, 2015: The lodge. I shoot Paddy. Aaron tells Chrissie about the affair,  _ in black. The green merely said,  _None of this happens,_ and next to it Robert had stuck down an image of some sort of flower in a black box, like a logo for something. There was also a blue star here.

_ The affair _ ... so in this fantasy reality Robert had gotten married, then the two of them had had an affair? Because this all had to just that – make believe. Robert had ended the engagement months before he'd come back to Emmerdale, so Vic had told him. 

But then  _why_ ? 

He flipped through another few pages and stopped dead in his tracks. 

Because there it all was – the helicopter crash, Val being dead, even a small list of people that got hurt. The only difference was that here Chrissie, not Katie, seemed to set fire to a car that belonged to Robert, not one that had been rented. 

What was Aaron supposed to  _do_ with this information? Was Robert... psychic? Is that why he had been so interested in Aaron at the start, because he knew what they would be? Was that why he had left Chrissie, because he'd seen the future, this future, and decided that he didn't like it?

But how did a psychic still come out in his late twenties? Surely Robert would've been able to see that his family would be fine with it?

Or maybe Robert was just crazy. Maybe he wrote the things in black on the same day he wrote the things in green. Maybe Aaron was a fool for falling in love with him.

Aaron almost started laughing. Only he could feel this strongly about a complete and utter nutcase. He almost didn't look any further, almost didn't think he could stomach it. 

He was glad he did.

_ September 25th, 2015: I get shot. _

Robert had been trying to hard to find the planner that day, hadn't had it for weeks at that point. That was evident though the lack of colour on the previous pages, which they almost looked desolate without.

Aaron collapsed into one of the chairs by the table. Mentally he searched through all of the time he'd known Robert for any sort of sign that Robert had known what Aaron was about to say, if he'd ever given a knowing smile when he shouldn't have.

Oh. No wonder Robert had been so stressed, so worn out all the time. Because why wouldn't you be, if you knew something as big and devastating as that was going to happen and you weren't able to stop it.

_ God. _

Slowly, Aaron realised what this meant. Who had shot Robert was written here, when and if Robert was going to wake up was written here, everything up to _new years_ was in there. And now that Robert wasn't awake and presumably trying to change things must mean that what was written there would be pretty accurate, right? At least everything not involving Chrissie and her family. 

But did Aaron really want to know all of that information? He'd seen what Robert had been like in the weeks leading towards the shooting, did he want to place that sort of stress on himself? At the same time, with this maybe he could get Robert's shooter arrested and charged. Maybe with two people knowing more could be changed. 

Taking a deep breath, Aaron hesitantly turned to the next week.

There was a lot written here. It looked like Robert didn't know what was happening exactly when (which was _really_ helpful) to the point where there were things in black scribbled in the margins. The one that really stood out to him, though, was in all caps and underlined in the right hand corner of the first page.

_DO NOT LET AARON TOUCH THE GUN_

 

***

Robert and Aaron stared at each other for a while, Aaron with an expectant eyebrow raised and Robert with his mouth wide open. Robert didn't have the words, really, like he was sure Aaron didn't either.

“I can explain,” he started, his voice dry and croaky from lack of use.

“Oh, I'm sure you can,” Aaron said, closing the planner with a definitive _slap_. “But I don't want that right now. I knew you were waking up today, thanks to,” Aaron waved the planner at him, “so I sent Vic and Diane off to get a drink of summat.”

Robert swallowed, “So what do you want right now, then?”

“Firstly? For you to get better, and to get out of here. Then, when that's happened, and I'm sure you're not gonna freak out so badly that you send yourself right back into here, you and me are gonna catch up on a few things. It seems we both have a lot to tell each other. Understand?”

Robert nodded. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my plan for this fic I had Aaron being a lot more mad at Robert than he is here, but my kink is people being nice to Robert and understanding his actions so here we are.  
> I also feel like mentioning that this fic was based off a dream I had where Robert knew he was going to be shot and left Aaron clues to help him solve it. Who knows how that evolved into this.... maybe I'll write that as a separate fic at some point.


	11. Liar, liar, liar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert and Aaron talk things out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I anxiously wrote a lot of this today because I wanted to distract myself from all the drama surrounding Danny lately, so... thanks Danny, I guess?  
> Also this is really long and a lot of robron talking about things boringly, but sometimes life is talking about things boringly. And I saw posts of people talking about this fic on tumblr and putting it on fic recs and such and all I can say is thank you. Endlessly and wholeheartedly.

It had been over a week since Robert had woken up. In that week he'd gotten scraps of information from Vic and Diane and whoever else decided to pay him a visit. There'd been no arrests, apparently, but he'd learned that that didn't include Aaron, who hadn't been arrested for shooting him but _had_ been arrested after kicking off a fight with Andy, after his brother had tried to visit him the other week. Aaron had apparently only been held in a cell overnight, then released the next morning when Andy said he wouldn't press charges. Vic had told him that Aaron had almost broken his nose just at the mere sight of him. Maybe later he'd be able to appreciate the protectiveness there, but for now all it did was make him worry. Because if he'd read far enough to know that Andy had made a deal with Ross to shoot him, then what else did he know?

But Aaron was giving nothing away. Robert kept looking for opportunities to get him on his own, but Aaron would always leave before that could happen, always in a way that was clearly deliberate. It seemed that he was intent on keeping his word that they wouldn't talk about this until Robert was out of hospital, but to that Robert could only ask why. Maybe it was because Robert had always pictured, in his feverish and fearful dreams where this happened, that Aaron would react harshly. He usually did when he was angry or felt betrayed or hurt (usually _by_ Robert, of course); it was something that Robert had been keen to fix when all of this had first started, to stop the speed in which Aaron would become upset with him and shut him out whenever he messed up.

Well, maybe he'd achieved that after all.

Regardless of why, Robert had been afraid that Aaron wouldn't understand. He would've told him if he'd thought otherwise, because the worst part of all of this had always been the lying. It was the one thing he didn't think he'd ever be able to change, no matter how much he knew he'd continue to remain as Robert Sugden: professional liar. Even if Aaron hated him now, he supposed at least he wouldn't have to lie anymore.

At least he wouldn't have to wonder much longer. He was being allowed home today, and, like the lying, he couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing.

“Hiya,” Vic said warmly, coming back into his hospital room after giving him half an hour to get changed into some normal clothes. She was going to be driving him back, since apparently Aaron couldn't even handle sitting in a car alone with him. “Are ya ready to head off?”

“Yeah,” he said, ignoring the small but sharp pain in his shoulder as he shrugged on his coat. “Have you, um, heard from Aaron today?”

She gave a short shake of her head. “He's been pretty under the radar with me since he went all _the Incredible Hulk_ on Andy.” The tone she used was the same one she'd used the first time she'd told him, the same one she used whenever Aaron was mentioned these days – one of disappointment and frustration. Robert also thought he heard fear in there, sometimes.

And, yeah, safe to say it looked like Vic wasn't exactly Aaron's biggest fan right now.

“What's Aaron done that you guys aren't telling me about?” Robert asked, straight to the point.

Vic sighed, “It's not what he's _done_ , it's just... his mood, I guess.”

“His mood?”

“He didn't take you being shot well,” Vic said, but there was something else there. Something that told Robert that she didn't quite believe that. “And the police are convinced he had something to do with it, apparently. They keep calling him in for questioning all the time and it's made him all aggressive.”

“And you agree with them,” Robert realised. “With the police, you think Aaron had something to do with me being shot?”

“I wouldn't go _that_ far. But he's not been himself recently, he's been well shifty and he's hardly come to see ya since you've woken up. Tell me that you wouldn't be suspicious if you were me.”

Robert couldn't. She folded her arms and shuffled her feet, the picture of nervousness. “Rob, are you sure you don't want to stay with me for a little while? At least until you're better.”

“Yes.” Vic looked like she wanted to argue, so he continued, “You might not trust him right now, but I do. I don't know what he's been doing while I was out of it, I'll admit that, but I know that there's no way he had anything to do with any of this.”

She still looked uneasy. “How can you be so sure?”

Robert shrugged. “Call it a boyfriend's intuition.” _And so the lying continued._

Seeing his sincerity, or maybe his stubbornness, Vic nodded. “Come on then,” she said. “Lets get you home.”

 

***

Aaron was waiting for them outside the Mill. He was leaning against the door frame as the car rolled up, emitting casualness in his joggers and black top. But Robert could see it, even from down the drive, how his back tensed, his shoulder's bunched together and the small smile on his face seemed restrained – Aaron was nervous, there was no mistaking it.

Seeing it on Aaron only made Robert's own flare up. He hadn't really let himself think about what he was going to say, how he was going to answer whatever questions Aaron was going to throw at him, so now he could only swallow deeply and use a shaky hand to open the passenger side door, praying to God that Vic didn't notice the tenseness between the two of them.

“Hey,” Robert said when Aaron walked towards the car. He was about to say more, maybe ask how he was, when Aaron drew him into a hug; his grip tight and desperate. Robert knew, objectively, that seeing him shot must have hurt, that Aaron's recent bad mood had to have been about more than just finding the planner, but feeling it in the way that Aaron held their bodies together sent him wrapping his own arm's around him in relief.

“Missed ya,” Aaron mumbled into his shoulder.

And Robert didn't know what to say to that.

Ruining the moment, Vic banged her hand on the roof of her car, turning the two of them away from each other and facing towards her. “Right then,” she said, trying to keep her voice cheerful. “Do you mind if I come inside for a cuppa? I can help Robert to settle in if ya'd like?”

The nerves running rampant in Robert's belly thought that was a fantastic idea, if it would delay the inevitable. Clearly, Aaron didn't see the appeal in that.

“I think it'd be best if you didn't, ta,” Aaron said. “Rob probably just wants to lay down and get some rest without all the fuss of the hospital.”

Vic hummed, “And you'd know _so_ much about what the hospitals been like recently, wouldn't ya.”

“Don't start,” Robert warned. He noted that Aaron was watching her with a confused look on his face. “Look, you can go Vic, I'll be fine. Aaron's right, I just wanna lay down.”

His sister looked between the two of them for a moment, her eyes full of suspicion. Although still uneasy, she relented. “I'll pop round tomorrow morning though, yeah? Make sure you're alright?”

Robert nodded and she, with a final look to Aaron, got back into her car and pulled out of the drive.

Wordlessly, Aaron walked into the house. Robert followed him.

The inside of the Mill was strangely spotless, since usually it was Robert doing most of the cleaning. It was a nice thought, Aaron making sure the house was nice before Robert came home. Although he supposed it was done as more of a nervous tick than a nice gesture, as something to do to keep himself busy while he waited.

The planner was laying on the coffee table. As Robert glared at it, it seemed to glow and throb like some sort of living entity. As if it could tell you all of Robert's secrets if you only asked it.

“Vic doesn't seem to trust me much,” Aaron commented, sitting himself down on the sofa.

Robert sat down, too, but made sure to keep a reasonable distance between the two of them. “No, she doesn't,” he said. “Apparently you haven't been on your best behaviour recently.” 

Aaron scoffed. “If she means that thing with Andy, then I think my actions were justified there.”

“But it's not just that though, is it.” Robert waited for him to say something, to explain himself, but Aaron only stared into space. “Aaron, what happened while I was unconscious?”

Aaron scoffed again. “I don't think you're the one in the position to be asking questions right now.”

Swallowing, Robert said, “Okay, so ask _me_ questions. I'm sure you have a lot of them.”

Again, Aaron just sat there, but this time Robert continued to wait for him, letting the silence stretch out. Then, “Ya know, I don't even know where to start. Over the past couple of weeks I came up with all these theories and ideas about what you are and what your goal is, but now it's just...,” Aaron shook his head. “I don't understand why you didn't tell me.”

“How could I have?” Robert asked, helpless. “You would've thought I was crazy.”

“I did at first. Thought you were barking mad and that I was an idiot for falling for you.”

Robert let that sink in.

“And now?”

Aaron shrugged. “Depends on how you answer these next few questions, innit.”

There was a pause where Aaron seemed to be considering his next step. Robert took the moment to do the same.

“Are you... psychic? Can ya... can you see the future?”

Despite everything, the atmosphere between them and the circumstances, Robert let out a laugh. “God, no,” he said. “It's a little more complicated than that.”

“A time traveller, then.”

Robert went to shake his head, but stopped himself and thought about it. “Kinda. It wasn't like I flew here in a blue box or drove here in a car at eighty miles per hour, but I guess in a sense it was time travel. Haven't really let myself think about how it worked.” And Aaron was looking more confused than Robert had ever seen him, so he tried to explain. “I went to sleep one night, in August of the year 2017. But when I woke up, it was still August, just... August 2014.”

It was almost like Robert could see the clogs in Aaron's mind working as he processed that information, ticking and turning again and again. “But _why_?” Aaron choked out. “How does that even happen?”

Robert could only shrug and shake his head. “I've asked myself that a thousand times. We'll never know for sure, but I like to think this is a second chance. Not just for me, but for us. For the whole village,” Robert said. Really, thinking that had been one of the few things to get him through the first few, lonely months, when so much of him feared this time around would be worse. “2017 wasn't exactly a good year for either of us, or our relationship. We both made a lot of mistakes and by August we, um, weren't exactly together anymore.”

That seemed to upset Aaron, who looked at a loss for words.

“It's not like we'd been all bad,” Robert said, knowing what Aaron must have been thinking. “We were engaged, we were about to move into the Mill together as a family. But then out of nowhere everything sort of started to spiral and fall apart. Us included.”

“So you think that all this is a, what, way for you to stop that from happening again?” Robert nodded. “It must have been really bad then, if something took a look at ya and thought that you needed a redo.”

And there it was, laughter again. “Yeah, well, things were pretty shit, I'm not gonna lie. I know I said we both made mistakes, but it was me who ruined us.” Aaron, being himself, seemed to want to argue against that, even though he had no clue at all about what had happened. “No, I did. It must have been me, because _I'm_ the one that's been sent back in time, haven't I. I'm the one that has to fix it, because I'm the one that broke it in the first place.”

Shaking his head, Aaron moved closer to him and took his hands in his own. “I don't believe that.”

“You would if you knew what had happened.” 

“So tell me then.” That was what Robert had been afraid of. He could explain the planner, the time travel, his weird behaviour, but how was he supposed to tell Aaron he'd cheated on him, _again_? Not only that he'd cheated on him, but that the woman he'd cheated with had gotten pregnant?

Feeling tears well up inside of him, he shook his head no. “You don't want to know, Aaron.”

“Yes, I do-”

“No, you don't. Because when you do, I'll have to watch you hate me all over again, and I was really starting to love the life we were building together this time round. Even if I couldn't stop your fall, or save Val, or stop myself from getting shot, I had managed to create something with you that was innocent, and happy, and _good –_ and that was all I'd ever wanted. When this first started that was _all_ I wanted, for you and me to have a real chance to be together properly. Maybe-maybe _you_ want to know, but I don't think I can tell ya, Aaron, even though I promised myself I'd be honest with you today.”

But Aaron wasn't giving up, keeping an iron grip on Robert's hands and a determined look in his eyes. The two of them must of looked insane, Robert thought, sitting there compressed together and breathing heavily; tears covering both of their faces like someone had just died. “And I want those things too, okay? I may not have lived the life in that planner, where you and me never really got to _be_ together for ages, or experienced whatever else you and me went through, but I want us to be happy too. Maybe I don't say it a lot, but I love you, no matter what you're about to tell me.”

“You won't like it.”

“I don't like any of this right now, so you might as well tell me anyway.”

So he did. From Rebecca arriving to Emmerdale, to their engagement and Aaron's imprisonment, all the way to Rebecca's pregnancy and their break-up. Through it all Aaron sat in complete silence and gave nothing away, even through his face, which remained stoic and clear throughout.

“You couldn't handle it in the end,” Robert said. “The baby. You started self-harming again, and when I found out you ended it. In August, about a month after that, things weren't looking too good for us. We probably wouldn't have got back together, I don't think.”

They sat in heavy silence. Robert felt drained, talking about it bringing the memories back like a Dame breaking; drowning him in it. All of this, Rebecca and the cheating, had felt so far away that he hadn't thought about it since those early months, over a year ago now. He wished he could've forgotten it, wished Aaron had never found out, wished he'd never slept with her in the first place.

“When you woke up, back in August,” Aaron started, “what was it like? I mean, what was the first thing you wanted to do afterwards?”

“It was awful, at first,” Robert remembered. “I thought maybe I'd dreamt it all. That the last three years had been a nightmare. The only thing I could do was check to make sure you were real; I felt like I was gonna be sick if you weren't. When I found you online I just kinda ran. Got into my car, bought the planners I was gonna use, wrote everything down so I wouldn't forget. Broke up with Chrissie that very same day.”

Out of all the things he'd told Aaron, that seemed to affect him the most. He immediately let go of Robert and stood up, wiping the tears from his face, and walked towards the door.

“Aaron?” Robert asked, both confused and scared. “Aaron, where are you going?”

“I just-” Aaron grabbed his coat and keys, shaking a little as he did so. “I just need a minute, I can't – I can't _breath_ right now.”

He burst through the door, closing it like it burned him, leaving Robert all alone on the sofa. Silently, he broke down into even more tears, gasping with the force of them. He'd known this would happen. Aaron now knew the truth, and just like before he'd left him.

Again, Robert had failed.

 

***

A few minutes turned into a few hours, until it was the next morning and Aaron was still gone. Robert had tried to call him, but had found Aaron's phone on the bedside table upstairs. Imagining Aaron out there all alone drove Robert to all sorts of horrible thoughts, all of them circling back to the idea of Aaron hating him. Maybe if he'd just lied then things would be okay. The thought made him laugh, loud and foreboding like a movie villain, that the one time he needed to lie he couldn't.

That night he'd tried to sleep in their bed, but just the sight of it just brought him more thoughts of Aaron; not only of where he might be, but what he might have looked like sleeping there while Robert was in hospital, wondering if Aaron couldn't bare the sight of the bed too.

So he slept on the sofa, despite the way his shoulder still hurt and the other memories it gave him of himself in another life, sleeping on a sofa with a butterfly blanket. And that was where Vic found him the next morning, true to her word that she was going to stop by, curled up and miserable.

When she asked, he told her Aaron was at the shop. That he'd only been on the sofa because he was waiting for him to come back. In fact, he'd told her she should go almost as soon as she'd arrived, because would be home soon and he'd look after him.

_Liar, liar, liar._

And for a minute, Robert thought – no, believed – that Aaron wasn't going to come back at all. That he'd gone to Ireland again and now there was really no saving them.

But Aaron did come back. He looked a mess, with his hair all scruffy and his eyes red rimmed, but he was back nonetheless. It was about midday and Robert had barely moved from the sofa since Vic had left. They must have looked like a right pair.

“I'm sorry,” Aaron said roughly, closing the door softly behind him. “I shouldn't have run off like that.”

Robert swallowed. “You had every right to be upset.”

“I didn't know what I was feeling,” he said. “There was – there was so much happening in my head, I just had to … process it all, I guess. Figure out how to say what I wanted to say.”

Right. Robert had guessed that this would happen. “Okay.”

Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, trying to hide how he was sniffling like an absolute child. “You don't have to explain it, I can pack a bag now and go and stay with Vic-”

Robert had been getting himself off the sofa, but Aaron pushed him back down and sat beside him. “Rob, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Aaron I get it, what I told you – what I did – it's unforgivable. You don't have to-give a speech about how you can't do this anymore. Because I've heard it already, okay?”

“No,” Aaron said, shaking his head. “No, I wasn't – can you just hold on a second and let me say what I want to say?”

He'd rather not, but Aaron was staring at him with such wide, pleading eyes and Robert would take any second he could get with him, even if they were bad.

“You kept asking me what happened while you were unconscious,” Aaron said. “And I didn't really know what to tell ya when you asked, because I was still a mess. Still am, really, but hearing some of the stuff you said yesterday helped me, I don't know, realise what I was feeling.” Aaron took a deep breath. “I didn't find the planner until maybe a week after you'd been shot, and for half of that week I didn't even leave the hospital, didn't shower, did nothing. And I wasn't on my best behaviour then, no, but I think I was worse then than I was with the planner. Because the police kept trying to pin it on me and I had no clue who would want to do this to ya, so it wasn't like I could really defend myself, could I? Then no one knew when or if you were gonna wake up and I... may have snapped at Vic a couple of times, but I didn't think she'd... I thought she understood, but, well, clearly not.” Robert thought about that. Vic had been one of the few people the first-time round to really care about who shot him, and she'd been adamant it had been Aaron. There was a chance that this was a reflection of that, he thought, forcing her to believe it like Aaron had been forced to lie about their relationship.

“Anyway,” Aaron continued. “When I did find the planner... at first I thought you were crazy, like I said. Then I read up to the bit where you got shot and it, uh, kinda became obvious that you knew what you were talking about.” He offered Robert a weak smile. “After that I became focused on getting Andy and Ross caught out, because now I knew it wasn't me and everything didn't feel so... hopeless. So I called the police and left an anonymous tip-off about where the gun was, but they haven't been able to trace it back to either of them, and I guess hearing that sort off. Set me off.”

“Is that why you went off on Andy?” Robert asked, noticing the way Aaron had began to fiddle with his fingers. “Because you didn't think he was going to get arrested?”

“Not exactly. I knew I had a limited time limit until you woke up, so I made a new plan to try and get him to confess. I was gonna try it out that day, but... before Andy visited, Chrissie did.”

And that was – unexpected, to say the least.

“ _Why_?” Robert asked, incredulously. “How did she even know?”

“It's been all over the news, and the police questioned her.” Aaron explained. “Turns out bitter ex-fiancée is just as high on the suspect list as bitter boyfriend.”

Robert still didn't understand. “And seeing Chrissie upset you?”

Aaron sighed, “I didn't wanna read any further than you waking up, so I spent weeks stopping myself by re-reading the months we'd already lived. And she was in it so much – you marrying her, you choosing her over me again and again and again. When I was just reading it I could pretend it was like a book, ya know, I could separate you and me from all that. But seeing her made it real. And she wouldn't shut up about how you were going to break my heart, or ruin my life, and saying you were scum and – it made everything that was upsetting me multiply. Then she leaves and all I see is Andy staring at me like a fucking idiot down the hallway and I couldn't handle it anymore.”

“You must be so mad at me,” Robert said, feeling his heart drop. “Cause I've basically just done what she said I would, haven't I?”

Sadness sprung on him again, but Aaron just rolled his eyes at him. “No you haven't, you idiot. We don't even know if that was really _you_ , and not some weird projection you got of some possible future where things go to crap.”

Robert blinked at him. “How can you not be mad at me?”

“Because like I said yesterday, I love ya. No matter what. And, okay, I was hurt when you told me, how could I not have been? But when you said all that stuff about just wanting to find me and make it right with me when you woke up... Robert, you could have chosen to do anything when you woke up that day. You could've left Chrissie and started again somewhere completely new, or stayed with her. You could've done anything in the world, yet you chose to come back to me. And after spending weeks reading about how many times you chose her over me?” Aaron laughed, and it was a freeing and glorious thing. “How could I be angry at ya for that?”

A sense of freedom filled him now, after spending so much time hating himself and trying to stop himself from messing up he didn't really know what to do with it. It was like it was overflowing out of him.

“I don't deserve this,” Robert sobbed.

“Doesn't matter, though, does it? Cause I'm giving it to you anyway.” They fell into each other's arms again, Robert crushing his noes against Aaron's neck while Aaron's chin dug into his shoulder. It was uncoordinated and messy, but full of so much love. “And now that I know, I can help ya. Maybe you don't have to tell me everything, but if something big is about to happen and you don't think you've done enough to stop it, then come to me and we'll deal with it. Together.”

“Aaron...,” Robert started carefully. “There are things that are gonna happen soon – bad things that... I don't necessarily need to tell ya. Are you sure that you don't just want to know everything?”

Aaron hummed thoughtfully. “Will knowing it just make me miserable?”

“Probably.”

“Then no, I don't wanna know. Not until the final second before it happens, or if I ask ya. Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Gordon's arrival was so close, much closer than Robert had realised. At least now he could give him some reassurance that his Father would be sent down. At least Liv would be here soon, even if she did hate him at first.

He hanged onto the 'at leasts' like a lifeline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading the latest instalment of Jess's fantasy land where Aaron is nice to Robert on a daily basis.  
> I'm at the point now where I'm desperately excited to finish this, both because I love the end of this fic and because I have a whole other multi-chapter planned out, haha. Which is weird because I'm usually more of a poet/short story writer, but I guess that's just the power of robron.


	12. Theorise with me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron and Robert's trip to Barcelona is interrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm keeping with the canon theme that the boys can't simply just go to Barcelona happily.  
> And I really, really tried to get this up yesterday, but I also saw Endgame yesterday and I was too much of an emotional mess to think about writing.

The sea was making crashing noises. Robert had been watching it beat against a cliff edge for a while now, as it seemed to crackle and drag in a lulling movement, again and again like a pendulum swinging. While it moved, he thought about how constant the sea was. No matter how long he sat there and watched it, the waves would crash against the cliff side until gravity pulled it back from the shore, where it would stay for hours until being brought back forward; starting all over again the next day. No matter what happened next, what he failed and succeeded to change, he knew that the sea would remain the same. Robert decided he liked that, the things that were constant. It gave him something to focus on, to think about.

Like the fact that Barcelona was warm for November. That was another thing Robert had used to occupy his mind for the past few days – the heat, slickening his skin and leaving patches of red on his shoulders. And, mostly, wondering how even now Aaron could keep a black shirt on. Whenever they felt bothered enough to leave their hotel room (and they had done, a lot more than Robert would've expected) it would stick to his back like plaster, and Robert, being a good boyfriend, would run his hand up and underneath his shirt, feeling under to where his skin was sticky but still full of muscle and strength. Aaron would always give him a glare when he did it, to which Robert would reply with a raised eyebrow and quip that he was just looking out for his fella, stopping his skin from getting irritated.

That was another thing: Aaron. Neither of them had had much to say for a while after they’d talked it all out. Like they’d run out of words. But once they had, they’d decided together eventually that the two of them needed this trip, needed the chance to get away. Robert had thought that maybe they’d talk more about the future, but Aaron seemed certain that he didn’t want to know, and Robert didn’t really know what to do with that. Because he’d need to tell him soon, preferably before Gordon had a chance to show his face, but the past few days had been so calm and light that Robert didn’t think he had it in him.

Especially after he already tried to tell him, on the first night here, after he’d spent the whole journey worrying and thinking until his stomach was churning from more than car sickness. They’d collapsed onto the hotel bed, way too tired to do anything other than lay there, and Robert had asked him a second time.

Aaron had stared at him. “Something's happening soon, then?” he’d asked, tiredness giving way to the slight nervous quiver in his voice. “Something bad?”

Robert had nodded.

“How soon?”

“Just before Christmas. It’s not... you didn’t handle it very well the first time around, so I want to make sure... I need to make sure you’ll be okay this time.”

“Okay,” Aaron said like he was still processing. “Okay, then tell me when we get home. We’ll deal with it all then.”

Maybe the real Robert-from-now would've missed it, but this Robert didn't. Aaron was scared to know, rightly so. If there was anything in this world Robert hated, it was seeing Aaron feel anything but pure happiness.

And so, the future was off limits.

But the present and past? Aaron didn’t see the good in ignoring that.

“With Katie,” Aaron started, making Robert groan and hold his stroking hand still against Aaron’s chest. They were sat on a lounge on their hotel room’s balcony that overlooked the cliffs edge, one of the few places where Aaron would let himself be shirtless, and Robert was taking as much advantage of Aaron resting between his legs as possible. “Oh, come on, it’s just one question!”

“I thought we were leaving questions back in the UK.”

“Come on.” Aaron turned his head round to pepper kisses along Robert’s chin. “Just one. I’ve been thinking about this all day.”

Robert raised an eyebrow. “Got you on top of me and all you can think about is Katie?”

Pouting, Aaron knocked their conjoined legs together. The action reminded him so much of a whining child that Robert supposed he had to give in.

“So, ya know how Katie was supposed to die?” he asked. Robert thought about quipping back that he’d hardly forgotten but couldn’t quite stomach it. “Then why didn’t she?”

Robert squinted at him. “What do you mean?”

“You said that it felt like Val had to die. That you _had_ to be shot, yeah?”

He nodded.

“Then why didn’t Katie have to die?” Aaron asked, chewing his bottom lip. “What makes her any different?”

Honestly, Robert had no clue. It was one of the main reasons he didn’t like to think about any of this: none of it made any clear sense. “Well, she’s not the only thing that didn’t stay the same,” Robert said, thinking. “We’re not an affair. I’m not married. It’s not like everything has to stay the same.”

Aaron shook his head. “But those things don’t feel as important though, do they? Deaths are important. Them never happening is like the opposite of someone never being born. You can’t just change that, can ya?”

 _Evidently you could_ , Robert thought.

“What about the Lodge,” Robert argued. “I told you about the letters. It was like someone was insistent that it needed to happen and it then it never did. I changed it.”

Shaking his head like a mad man, Aaron got up from Robert’s chest and turned to face him; eyes running across Robert’s face with the speed he was sure his brain was moving in. _So much for not thinking about things._

“But that was you though, wasn’t it,” Aaron said excitedly. “You stopped that.”

“Yeah, I just said that-”

“But what’s different about you?” Aaron asked. “Something that no one else in the village has?”

“Well, I know what’s going to happen already.”

“Exactly! And us going to the Lodge – well, we can’t bloody go if you say no. And who can force you to go?” Aaron held his hands out towards him in anticipation, waiting for Robert to answer him.

“No one?”

“And whys that?”

“Because I already know what’s-”

“-what’s going to happen. So, if you got an impulse that made you think you should go, you’d know to question it because you know that us going would probably end in disaster, even if we’re not an affair. Like when I told my Mum we weren’t really a thing – how was I supposed to know that trying to hide our relationship would end with Katie trying to reveal the lie? If I had, would I have listened to that voice in my head telling me to lie? Would you have?”

Outside of himself, Robert could feel his eyes widening. Because that – that made a hell of a lot of sense. But that would mean... what would that mean? “So, you’re saying what?”

“That you can only change the stuff that directly goes back to you,” Aaron said. “Since you’re the only one that can make those decisions. Everything else is just... filling itself in as you go.”

“And that’s why Katie’s alive?” Robert asked. “Since I couldn’t kill her?”

Suddenly, Aaron looked sheepish. “I mean, it’s just a theory. That still doesn’t explain why I had to lie to my Mum, or why Katie set fire to that car.”

“Maybe it does,” Robert said thoughtfully. “Or maybe there’s no point in trying to figure it out at all.”

Aaron hummed, then settled himself back down against Robert’s chest. “It’s been driving me crazy,” he said. “Trying to figure out why this is happening – and to you, of all people.”

“Maybe it happens to everyone at some point, but no one says anything,” Robert wondered aloud, making Aaron snicker. “Imagine that, though. A world where everyone gets a second chance.”

“That would mean there’d be no mistakes.” Aaron said. “So maybe we’re living in the bad version, before people get to change things.”

“Or maybe people just... fail. They go back and do the same things all over again. They never learn,” Robert said. “That’s the literal definition of insanity, ya know.”

“Cheerful,” Aaron commented dryly, making Robert pinch his side. “At least we know you’re not going to be one of those people, then.”

That was when Robert’s phone rang.

 

***

Robert hated court rooms. Not only were they cold, and the seats too hard, but the onslaught of emotion and memory they held were on the borderline of unbearable for Robert these days. There was a time where Robert believed that watching Aaron stand on trial for his own shooting was bad enough, but then Gordon had happened and suddenly the memory of that was covered in dust. He didn't know yet where he was going to place this one, but, well, it was close to the top.

Aaron squeezed his hand, sitting so close to him Robert was convinced someone would think they were wielded together. Beside Aaron was Chas, looking sombre, and then Adam and Vic, who were similarly pressed together. A few rows back, a good distance away from them, was Andy. Vic had asked him to come with them, but they all knew that there was still a part of him that blamed Robert for what was about to happen. Watching him now, Robert could see how unkempt he was; how tired he must be. Robert couldn't blame him.

Suddenly, there was a sound of a door opening and footsteps walking up stairs.

Katie was taking the stand.

Everything else seemed to happen to someone else. Robert was aware of the way Aaron tightened the pressure on his hand, of Katie repeating her name out for the judge in a monosyllabic, dreary tone, of the sound of Chas' breathing quickening, but all his eyes saw were bright white. It was what happened next that brought everything back to reality.

“Katie Sugden,” said the Judge, voice booming across the room. “You stand accused of attempted murder and the possession of an illegal fire arm. How do you plead?”

It was like the world stopped, if only for a moment. Then,

“Guilty.”

“ _No_ ,” Andy gasped, standing up in shock; horror painting his face as tears began to fall from his eyes. “No, Katie, you couldn't have. Y-you wouldn't _do_ something like that!” The Judge gave him a silencing glare before reading off the sentence, something that Robert either didn't hear or couldn't process, but whatever it was it only made Andy scream louder. “ _Katie_! Tell 'em you're lying. Please, _please_ tell 'em you're lying.”

Robert didn't see how that would make a difference anymore. Security footage had been found of Katie walking down a high street in Hotten, carrying what looked very suspiciously like a gun. The police had used that to track her down, arresting her quickly for what had happened with the rented Audi R8. She confessed to shooting him, they'd told Robert on the phone, almost as soon as they'd gotten her into custody. Andy knew all of this, must have done, but still Robert watched him continue to mumble to himself tearfully.

Andy looked about ready to collapse, but Vic was there quickly; wrapping her arms tightly around him. “It's okay,” she said, not at all sounding like she believed it. “Andy, everything's going to be okay.”

Below them, Katie was being cuffed and prepared to be taken away. Robert realised, very suddenly, that this could be the last time he ever sees her. He stood up, startling Aaron.

“Katie,” he said. It wasn't any louder than Andy's voice had been, but upon hearing it Katie looked up as if this was the first time she'd heard her name all day. “Why?” was all he could ask. “Why did you do this?”

An officer put a hand on Katie's back, guiding her out of the room. She kept her eyes trained on Robert the entire time, but only at the last second did she respond, casual and calm, with, “Because she told me to.”

With that she was ushered out of a door on the other end of the court room, it slamming behind her with a definitive _boom_ , leaving Robert feeling like the room was shaking from side to side.

 

***

“What the hell do you think you're playing at?” Aaron growled, slamming Andy against the wall. It had only been a few hours since they'd left the court house, while Andy had continued to yell and scream and cry. Robert had figured that he was the last person his brother wanted to see, yet here Andy was: at their front door. “Showing up here after the day he's had – after what _you're_ wife did to him?”

“ _Aaron_ ,” Robert scolded, rushing to pull his boyfriend off his brother.

“Unless it weren't ya wife that did it, of course,” Aaron continued as Robert pulled him away. “Would be dead romantic, wouldn't it, a wife covering up a shooting for her husband?”

Andy blanched at him. “You're still going on about this? I told ya at the hospital and I'm telling ya now – I had nothing to do with Rob getting shot!”

“Then what was Katie talking about in the court, then?” Aaron asked, slowly being released from Robert's grip. “The she? You're gonna stand here and tell me you have no idea what she's talking about?”

“Yes, actually, cause that's the whole reason I'm bloody over here!” Andy shouted. “She said it to ya like you'd know who she was talking about,” he said, directing this at Robert now. “So who is it?”

Robert shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“Then why would she say that to ya?” Andy asked.

“She said it to me before, that some woman made her do it. But that was about her setting the car on fire, so I didn't... think this would apply here.”

Aaron whipped round to face him, clearly surprised. Right – Robert hadn't exactly told him about that.

“Why didn't you tell us that when it happened?” Andy asked, furious. “Or the police?”

“Maybe I just forgot!” Robert said. Strangely, he realised it was the truth. “A lot has happened recently, ya know, even before I got shot n' all.”

Silently, Aaron just stared at him while Andy kept opening and closing his mouth in frustration. Even in the silence Robert could feel him seething.

“I'm telling the police,” Andy said eventually. “If someone's made her do it, or confess to it, then surely that's something to look into.”

Robert wanted to say no. Wanted to argue that maybe Katie had simply lost her mind and didn't know what she was saying anymore. Because he didn't want to know who she was, or what she meant. But how could he explain any of that to him?

Instead, he nodded.

After Andy had left Aaron had stayed silent. Had put on a brew with his hands on his hips while Robert sat on the sofa, waiting for his boyfriend to verbalise whatever it was running through his mind.

And he'd let himself _think_.

“Did you mean it?” Aaron asked, sitting beside him. “That you forgot?”

Robert nodded.

“Thought so. You're too good of a liar to come up with something that pathetic.”

“Do you believe that Andy didn't do it?” Robert asked.

“Kinda,” Aaron said. “I've been trying to figure out why since he left, but...”

“Me too. It's weird, it's not like Andy's not here, or Ross. He could've done it easily.”

Beside him, Aaron took a heavy sip of his brew. “This 'she'... do you think she's behind all of this?”

Robert looked at him. “All of what?”

“Just all of it. You getting sent back in time, me feeling like I had to lie to my mum, all of this with Katie. It has to be, doesn't it?” Aaron asked. “Who else could it be?”

“Maybe,” Robert said. “I was coming up with my own theory about that, actually. Maybe because I'm changing things there needs to be someone else making sure the big stuff stays the same.”

Aaron frowned. “It's not really staying the same if the person that did it changes.”

“Maybe who did it isn't the important bit.” With a sudden churning in his stomach, Robert rushed upstairs.

“Rob?” Aaron called, following him. “Robert, what are you doing?”

He kept the planner in the bedside table now that Aaron new, and he didn't need to hide anymore. With speed, he took it out and flipped through it; landing on the current week – and stopped, stifling a gasp.

“Robert?” Aaron asked again. “What's going on? The bad thing, is it happening now?”

“No,” he said heavily. “But this... this is about to cause it.”

Robert wasn't looking at him, but he already knew that Aaron must be frowning. “Why? How?”

Swallowing deeply, Robert said, “If I'm right... then your Mum's about to stab Diane.”

With that, they were both out the door.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sucks to be Katie in this fic, really.


	13. Delayed reactions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fight against Gordon begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the earliest in the day I've ever posted a chapter. Go me.  
> Also, it's barely hit me that this has 5 chapters left (could be 6 if i don't stick to my chapter plans) and I'm just very...????... about all of this, sksksk  
> Like always, thank you for reading.

“This is it then?” Aaron said, panting hard. “The bad thing?”

They'd found Diane on the floor, blood seeping through her fingers as she desperately tried to hold her wound, with a deadly-pale Chas standing over her holding the knife. Aaron had been quick to go to his mother; wrapping her carefully in his arms like she was made of glass. Robert had called an ambulance, then Vic and then Andy, one hand holding Diane while the other held the phone.

Andy had gone with Diane in the ambulance, while Vic had carefully taken Chas by the hand and promised to take her there; giving Robert and Aaron a nod that indicated they should follow the ambulance. Honestly, Robert didn't really think Chas had heard her, but he and Aaron had rushed to the Porsche anyway.

They'd barely made it past the Emmerdale sign when Aaron had asked him.

The question made Robert look at him from the driver's seat; his hair a wonderful, scruffy mess and his hands trembling. Like a man not ready to know the truth.

At least when Robert said no, he wasn't lying. Even so, Aaron's brows crinkled and his lips gaped slightly apart in concern.

“It's worse than this?” Aaron pressed.

Robert didn't have an answer for that.

 

***

When Diane had been diagnosed with cancer, Aaron had turned to Robert in the hospital room and whispered gently in his ear, “Is this the bad thing?”

Robert had shaken his head, making Aaron frown deeply.

Since then, Aaron had continued to push him almost daily, but every time Robert had found himself unable to say it. Yes, he'd promised himself he'd tell him when they got back to the UK from Barcelona. Yes, the day was getting closer and closer. But Robert hadn't thought he'd be able to sit there and tell Aaron that his abuser was going to be coming to his village, and soon.

Until it got to the point that he didn't have a choice anymore.

Because he'd seen Gordon in town yesterday. Not only had he been in town, but he'd been there with Chas; hand in hand strolling down the street like something out of a low-budget romantic comedy. He'd remembered that the two of them started something again, but seeing it was like getting punched in the face. What was worse was that he had been out buying Aaron a Christmas present, and the weight of the game Aaron had been asking for and the stack of jumpers kept him from doing something stupid; like going over there and re-enacting any and every fantasy he'd ever had of destroying him.

When he'd gotten home, he'd thrown up right into the kitchen sink. And that was where Aaron found him, eventually, bent over from the unsettled feeling in his stomach and tears streaming in floods down his face.

Aaron had been quick to go to him, placing a soothing hand on his waist and on his back; questions of concern flying from his mouth. The softness of it all only made Robert cry harder.

“It's now,” Robert said when he could. “The bad thing, I have to tell ya now.”

“Not if it's gonna make you ill, you aren't,” Aaron discouraged, but Robert could hear it. The curiosity. Aaron may have been scared, but he wanted to know nonetheless.

Robert had shook his head, “I'll only feel worse if I don't tell you.”

So he did. He didn't go into too much detail, wanting to leave Aaron the choice of talking about what had happened, but he told him what he needed to know – that Gordon was coming.

Afterwards, they'd lain down together on their bed; Aaron resting his head on Robert's chest. Neither of them had cried, but the atmosphere was still opaque in a way that Robert thought he might choke on. 

“What happens next?” Aaron asked, voice gruff.

“You want to know the future now?”

“Just this. Just about what happens with-” he swallowed thickly, “with _him_.”

Robert didn't hesitate to tell him. “You take him court. It's hard, and sometimes we loose hope, but you do it. You do it, and you win.”

Aaron let out a deep gasp. Clearly, he hadn't been expecting that.

“How long does he get?”

Robert remembered, suddenly, the way Aaron had said it to Lachlan on the day of the crash, with a sense of forewarning and fulfilment. He didn't say it exactly like that now, but it tasted just as profuse on his tongue, “Eighteen years.”

Like a rag doll Aaron's limbs went numb on top of Robert, shaking and gasping as, finally, he started to cry. Robert held him through it all, entangling Aaron in his arms and legs like an octopus, for what felt like hours. After the tears stopped Robert thought that Aaron might have worn himself out completely and succumbed to sleep, but just when he started considering moving Aaron said, “Talk to me.” His voice was scratchy, like an old record player, but very much awake.

Robert hesitated. “About what?”

“Anything but him.”

There was silence as Robert thought. Then,

“I have another theory about Katie,” he said. “It kinda bounces off of yours.” He grunted, an Aaron sign of encouragement, so Robert continued, “So, if we're going with the idea that only _I_ can change things that effect _me_ , and everything else has to happen – well, then what about Chrissie? There's, um, a lot of things that will happen soon that need her to be here, but she's not. And even if she showed up next year... there would be no reason for some of those things to happen, there'd be no reason for them to.”

“What does this have to do with Katie?” Aaron grumbled, probably more agitated at the mention of Chrissie than anything else.

“Because Chrissie also should've been here to set my car on fire, but she wasn't,” Robert explained. “Katie was, even though she didn't have a reason for doing that at all.” _Because the woman told her too,_ Robert thought suddenly but didn't – _couldn't_ – say it. “I've been thinking a lot recently about the helicopter crash – more than I should be, probably, but it's been hard to stop now I've started. And the one thing I don't understand is how I wasn't able to _stop_ it. Because so much of why it happened came down to me, didn't it? But none of the changes I made did anything at all...”

Aaron made a 'keep going' _hmm_ sound into his chest.

“So, I've uh,” Robert swallowed, “been thinking that maybe I didn't save Katie at all, either. That they couldn't make _me_ do it, so she didn't die then, but since then she's just been... playing Chrissie's part, I guess. Not the scornful wife, obviously, but sticking around to do her big bits.”

Tapping his fingers thoughtfully on Robert's hand, Aaron asked, “Then why is she in prison, if she's meant to be doing Chrissie's stuff? And why shoot you?”

“I've been thinking about that,” Robert said. “And all I can come up with is that because Katie isn't dead, Andy doesn't have a reason to want me dead. And... Are you okay knowing this little bit about the future?” Pausing for a second, Aaron nodded. “Well, Andy and Chrissie kinda... become a thing. And it leads to Andy leaving Emmerdale for good, but a lot of that is caused because he shot me, in a way. They start having issues after she finds out that he did it. But if Chrissie's not going to be here, then there's no need for any of that, is there? Maybe... maybe all this ties up any of Chrissie's involvement, so Katie doesn't have to be here anymore. She was just a puppet.”

Aaron hummed again. “Y'know, I've been thinking about how me knowing will effect anything. Although if what you're saying is true, then it probably won't change nowt.”

Flashes of Kasim, Aaron's bloody knuckles and prison bars filtered through Robert's mind.

“I hope I'm wrong,” was all he could say.

***

Even though Aaron had been told about Gordon, it hadn't prepared him for actually seeing him in the flesh. Just before Christmas Aaron had come storming into the Mill, sobbing and spitting as Robert tried desperately to calm him down; pulling him down to sit on the floor and telling him to just _breathe_. In the end, they'd agreed that they needed to leave – at least for Christmas and New year. Only when they came home would the real troubles start; the holidays were there's and there's alone.

They'd spent Christmas in a hotel in Manchester with only Christmas wishes shared through phone calls from family, but it had been perfect nonetheless. Aaron had smiled warmly at the game and rolled his eye's playfully at the brightly coloured jumpers, but his presents to Robert had been the cause for the most discussion.

Really, it was just one of them that made him pause: a planner, with 2016 written in big, bold letters on a sleek black cover. Stunned, Robert had run a thumb over the blank pages; imaging the chaos that he would soon fill in there.

“You haven't already bought one, have ya?” Aaron asked nervously. “It's just. I thought you'd need a new one, now that the years almost done. And I figured... well, we're a team now, innit? 'Bout time I got more involved with it all. This could be _our_ planner.”

He'd been rambling, something he only ever did when something really mattered. It had made Robert kiss him, one of many times that day, smiling into it.

“I love you,” Robert said, still smiling, “But you know you don't have to do stuff like this, don't ya? I don't expect you to be any more involved than you want to be.”

Aaron had shaken his head, placing a hand on Robert's on top of the planner. “I want to be involved. I know I said I didn't want to know until I had to, but... that's not fair on you, is it? Having to hold all that.”

“If you mean about Gordon-”

“Not just that,” he said. “I saw you were struggling, even before you were shot. If me knowing helps you, even if it changes nowt else, then I think it's worth it.”

They'd filled in the planner together, that night. Robert had considered if he shouldn't include Chrissie at all, but decided to do it anyway. Some of what happened still might; it was dangerous to act so assured, he thought.

On new years, they'd burned the 2015 planner together in a public bin a few streets down from the hotel; hand in hand. Not being alone made it all feel less criminal, this time around, like Aaron being there made the dark things light. He still smelled of smoke afterwards, but at least this time Aaron did too.

 

***

Coming back to Emmerdale was frightening, to say the least. But despite the fear of what was to come, there were good things that acted as reassurance to both of them. Especially for Aaron, who knew when he told his Mum, when Liv would come into the picture, everything. He seemed set on sticking to it, too.

“You don't have to,” Robert had said. “If you want to tell your Mum as soon as we get back, then you should. Even if it speeds things up a little, that can't be a bad thing, can it?”

Aaron had shaken his head. “We already know that things don't exactly go to plan when you change things, and you're the one that was sent back in time. It's best if I just – do things how they're supposed to be done.”

So they had. They'd come home the day Aaron was supposed to collapse in the Scrapyard, and thankfully it looked like Aaron having sepsis wasn't vital. (Neither was the self-harm, which Robert had been sure to check during their time away.)

Aaron had kept himself as low profile and out of Gordon's way as possible, striking Chas' suspicions like they knew it would. She'd hounded Robert countless times throughout January, threatening all sorts if he didn't tell her what Aaron's problem was. But Robert hadn't spilled last time and he didn't spill now, much to Aaron's relief and Chas' annoyance. Just like it should always be, it all came down to Aaron telling his Mum in exactly the way he wanted too.

Which was now.

Robert had asked and asked and asked if he wanted him to come with him, but this was something Aaron had been keen to do alone. He'd left hours ago, in which Robert had been cleaning and working and reading and _pacing,_ like a lunatic. When Aaron did come home they were both out of breath for entirely different reasons – but Robert ran to him regardless, keeping him close as Aaron held onto him like a lifeline, letting whatever tears he had left in him out onto Robert's shoulder.

Robert carefully guided him to the sofa, where they both collapsed. It seemed to be a running theme these days, Robert thought, the two of them sat emotionally on the sofa.

“How did it go?” Robert asked eventually.

“She believed me, like you said she would. It was... it felt good, I think. To finally say it,” Aaron said, exhausted. “What happens next?”

“She tells Cain, I think, or one of you do. He tries to kill him, but you stop him and then... we find Liv, I think,” Robert said, very much aware that he was recalling the events like he'd read them off a shopping list. With a bit more sympathy in his voice, he asked, “How are you feeling?”

Aaron shrugged. “Tired. Numb. Like I wanna sleep.”

“We'll do that, then.”

And they would've done – if Andy didn't come crashing through the door, clutching onto his phone and spluttering unintelligible nonsense.

“Andy?” Robert asked, approaching him like you would a wild animal. “Andy, what's going on?”

Still looking like he didn't quite know where he was, Andy managed to stutter out, “K-Katie.”

Aaron and Robert shared a concerned look. “What about Katie?” he asked, putting a hand on his brother's arm.

“The prison. Called me, just now. They said – Rob, they said-”

“What did they say, Andy?” Aaron asked, a little less patient than Robert.

“The prison,” Andy said again, trying to control his breathing. “They called about Katie. She wasn't in her cell when they were doing checks. They think – they think that she might have escaped.”

 

***

All Katie Sugden knew was that she was cold.

Walking for hours would do that to you, she figured. At first she'd stolen a police car from outside the prison, driving for a good hour until her brain had caught up with the fact that this was very much something they'd be able to track. Then there had just been the walking, hours and hours of it, with only a one, fitful attempt at sleep in a church she'd broken into to break it all up.

She'd figured out quickly that it was easier to travel at night. There were less people around, less chance of getting caught. And it wouldn't be difficult, getting caught, since she was still dressed in her prison garb. Not the warmest attire, but, well, she'd already said she was cold.

Honestly, she didn't know why she was doing this. She'd hadn't really done much at all since being locked up, merely keeping to herself and the few other inmates that seemed reasonably sane and going with the flow. She hadn't had the motivation to do much else, not even try to contact Andy. It had felt like she'd been biding her time, almost. Like she was waiting.

But one day her cell door had just... opened. She'd thought that maybe there'd been a power cut, since almost everything was run electronically, but the flickering light above her had told her otherwise. When she'd poked her head out the door, the halls had been barren. Not even a guard was in sight, even as she walked through the rest of the prison it looked more and more like it had been abandoned and she'd been left behind. All the doors leading to the exit had been open, too, and then there had been the police car – sat outside the exit, key in the ignition and no one around to see her get into it.

She hadn't hesitated before doing so, hadn't even _thought_. She'd been doing that a lot recently – not thinking. It made recent events easier to deal with if she didn't.

Suddenly, Katie felt her tired legs stop moving. She wrapped her arms around herself; the cold was even easier to feel when you weren't doing something. Looking down at her feet, Katie tried to shake her leg or wiggle her toes, but found she could do neither. She was rooted to the spot, literally.

“Katie,” a voice said from behind her, all twisted and wrong.

 _Oh_ , she thought. _That's why._

“It's been a while,” the voice continued. The sound of feet on gravel mixed with the roaring wind. “I'm sure you've been wondering about whether or not you were going to see me again.”

“I don't wonder about anything, anymore,” Katie said, relieved to feel that her lips still worked. “But I'm sure you knew that already.”

The voice – the _woman_ – hummed and placed a hand on her shoulder. If Katie could've, she would've clenched her toes together. “None of this has been very fair on you, has it? It wasn't before, either, I suppose. It's a shame, really – you were so astute. So fiery! Much smarter than anyone ever really gave you credit for.” The woman tutted. “A shame indeed. Now you're just a ghost.”

The woman gave a small, humourless chuckle and Katie was sure her heart had stopped. “I'm not a ghost,” she argued. “I'm alive. I'm standing right here!”

“Are you?” the woman asked. Katie didn't like the tone of her voice.

“That's enough small talk,” she said, trailing her hand down Katie's shoulder and onto her still wrapped arms. “There's one last thing I need you to do for me. Just one more, and then you can rest. How does that sound?”

It was a question, but the woman didn't give her much time to answer; prying Katie's fingers apart and grasping onto her hand. A type of liquid seemed to flow through Katie's legs suddenly, loosening them up and burning the cold away. Katie's toes wiggled happily in her shoes.

She and the woman walked for only a few minutes until Katie realised where they were. In the distance was Wylie's farm, just as run down and empty as Katie remembered it.

“What are we doing here?” Katie asked, trying and failing to turn her head towards the woman. She'd never been allowed to see what she looked like, not even during the first time she'd appeared in the passenger seat of Katie's car as she had been angrily driving away from Emmerdale.

“This is a big place for you,” the woman said. “There was a time when you and Andy wanted this farm, wanted it so badly you were willing to do anything for it. Even spy on Robert for Lawrence, the first time round.” Katie felt herself frown. She hadn't done that, had she? She didn't even know who Lawrence was. “You won't remember that, of course. But it happened, no matter what's changed. No matter how much Robert thinks he can run away from it.”

By now they'd reached the barn, and the woman guided Katie inside. It wasn't much warmer, but at least the wind was out of reach.

“You still haven't told me why we're here,” Katie said. “What do I need to do?”

The woman dropped her hand.

“Talk to me about the dinner at the Mill,” the woman said, ignoring her. “The one that made you want to get away from Emmerdale. Walk me through your actions.”

Katie blinked. She didn't want to, she realised. Sadly, it seemed her mouth had a mind of it's own. “I... didn't really want to be there, but Andy wanted to stop by. God knows why. But when we got there, I just... saw an opportunity to wind Robert up. Chas had told me everything Aaron had told her and I couldn't stop myself from trying to mess with them.” As she spoke, it was like the temperature dropped ten degrees for every word that left her mouth. Unstoppable chills ran through her body as she tried to finish. “R-Robert just. He makes me so angry, and I don't really know why. Like-Like I know I should be over it but... I just can't be.”

Katie heard the woman make a thoughtful noise. “That's good enough, I suppose.”

She tried to speak again, but it was like there were cold, dead hands covering her face; letting only muffled sounds escape. Again and again, Katie tried to fight as more and more of her body surrendered to the chill forcing her still.

To no avail.

“Katie.”

She looked forward. There it was – the woman's face. Right before her.

“I have one last question for you,” she said, solemnly, in the same, definitive tone the judge had used in court. “Do you know what day it is today?”

 

***

They'd called Robert later that day.

Her body had been found on the floor of Wiley's barn. She couldn't have been there for more than a few hours, but he'd hear on another day that it was as if she'd been rotting for months.

Hypothermia was the official cause of death. Not the impact of Robert's hands pushing her through the floor, but dead nonetheless.

It was Aaron that made the connection aloud, but they'd both been thinking it for days after they'd known.

It was February 5th, and Katie Sugden was dead.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP


	14. O' Olivia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys meet Liv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote almost all of this chapter today, cause the one I originally wrote was awful and gave way too much away.  
> I've also officially named all these chapters, which gives this thing ending a weird sense of finality. ew.

There'd been a funeral, but neither of them had gone to it. Andy had and a few others from the village, as far as they knew, along with whatever was left of Katie's out of Emmerdale family. Robert would've felt more guilty about the whole thing if it didn't coincide with Aaron's first time talking to a police officer about Gordon.

He'd been so brave, even in the face of Katie's death and what that could mean. It wasn't a surprise, of course, Aaron had always been the bravest of the two of them – that would never change, no matter how many times Robert had to relive this. They'd had the talk in the Mill's living room, while Chas and Robert stood in the kitchen; ready to step in, ready to protect.

But Aaron hadn't needed it. He'd cried – sobbed, really – and Robert had watched as every word seemed to take more and more from him, but every time he or Chas took a step towards him Aaron pressed a hand out towards them; shaking his head no. He didn't want comfort. Not until afterwards, anyway, when Chas and the officer were long gone and he no longer needed to focus on just getting the words out, Aaron silently took a firm hold of Robert's hand.

“Katie's getting buried today,” Aaron later said tiredly, the two of them sat at the kitchen table; their hands still clasped.

Robert nodded. “She's probably in the ground by now.”

“We should probably, ya know,” Aaron made a vague gesture with his other hand, “talk about this. About Katie. About what it all means.”

“We shouldn't be thinking about all that right now. What's going on with you is _so_ much more-”

“Don't say that,” Aaron said, flinching. “I don't... I don't want you fussing over me more than you do already. I get that we're blokes, Robert, but we _can_ do more than one thing at a time.”

It was a weak attempt at humour, so Robert gave a similarly weak smile back to it. “I know we can,” Robert said. “I'm not saying we should ignore it all again. But you've just – Aaron, you just told the _police_ about what he did to you. I can't imagine what that took, and I've seen you do this before. I don't want you using what's happening with me as some sort of distraction.”

“Oh, so you'd rather I slit my wrists open instead, is that it?” Aaron snapped. The harshness of it set Robert slumping back in his seat, removing his hand. As harsh as it was, Robert understood what he meant, even if it felt like a boot to the face. Aaron's eyes suddenly widened in alarm. “I-I know you didn't mean that. 'Course I know. It's just...,” he took a deep breath, “I need distractions like this. Something that isn't... _that_. Something that isn't just you and me spouting our feelings at each other until we're drowning in 'em.”

If he could've had it his way, Robert would've had them focus completely on the trial, and how they were going to get rid of the bad bits. But this wasn't about Robert, was it?

So, together they made a list of everything they were sure of. _A list of certainties,_ as Robert quietly called it. In the end they could round down what they knew to three separate points:

First, that Robert could only change what he was directly involved in. The affair, the lodge, his involvement in Katie's death. It seemed that the helicopter crash was a blip in the system, if you laid out all of the events together; something had happened there beyond Robert's control.

Secondly, that the thing that had made Aaron lie to Chas about his relationship with Robert wasn't done by the same force that made Katie do everything she did. What made that glaringly obvious was that Aaron hadn't come into contact with any sort of strange woman recently, and that the affects of both were extremely different. (Robert had come to realisation, though, that Aaron had lied to give Katie something to expose. Katie tries to find out who Robert is cheating with; Katie dies. Katie reveals that Aaron is a liar; Katie runs off and leaves Emmerdale. Robert thought it made sense, Aaron also nodding along when Robert had explained this to him; slowly, though, like he still couldn't believe that he'd done it.)

Lastly, births and deaths were set in stone. Katie dying when she did confirmed that there must have been something rooted there, holding that date in place. Births – births were trickier. Of course, there hadn't been any that Robert had actively tried to stop, but Aaron had pointed out that none of them had exactly _not_ happened either. Discussing it left a sour taste in Robert's mouth and a tightening in his belly; the air in the room thickening as the space between the two of them seemed to grow, somehow. Neither of them brought it up, although Robert could see that Aaron wanted to. It was in the way he was clenching his fists on the table, looking everywhere but at Robert. And they could've done, they could've talked about it until their tongues fell out, but... well, what would that do? What would that solve? Robert ran through every reason why it was a bad idea in his head, until he realised that the silence had been stretching out between them for too long.

Quickly, he wrote the three points down onto a small piece of paper and tucked it into the back of the planner, then asked Aaron if he thought they were done. Aaron nodded, but everything about him screamed dissatisfaction.

 _At least that means he's distracted,_ Robert thought, wanting hopelessly to keep him that way.

And that brought them onto something they _really_ needed to talk about:

Liv.

 

***

“So, what, we just sit here and wait a while?” Aaron asked.

“We could do,” Robert said. “Or we could just knock on the door now. It's up to you how we do this – although I wouldn't hate not getting kicked in the balls this time, mind.”

They watched as Sandra came out of the house carrying a bin bag; depositing it outside. Aaron sucked in a breath when he saw her and grappled at his jeans nervously. Robert understood what he was feeling; you could anticipate something all you like, but it would never prepare you for actually seeing it in front of you. Not ever.

Aaron released his breath when Sandra closed the front door, sagging back in his seat. He shook his head slowly, “I don't think I'm gonna be able to do this.”

The last few days had been hard, even for Robert, who, even though he had been through this all before, had hated every second of watching Chas stand in front of the whole pub and announce, in some overflow of emotion and righteousness, what Gordon had done to Aaron. Had hated how more people knowing made Aaron feel, locking himself up in their bedroom for the whole of the next day. And to make it all worse, amongst that was the increasing awareness that this trial wasn't going to be easy; not if Robert didn't pay Ryan to lie, which was one of the main things they had set out to avoid.

Suffice to say, Aaron wasn't exactly overflowing with confidence right now.

“I know it's hard,” Robert said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible. “And I know it can't be easy going in there knowing that she's going to say no. But you need her if you're going to win this thing.”

“I know.”

“Then we can wait out here for a little bit if you'd like. Go sit on that bench over there and wait for your sister to mug you out of a tenner before trying to steal your wallet.”

Somehow that made Aaron smile. “What's she like?” he asked. “Liv?”

“Like you, really,” Robert said with fondness. “She doesn't like me all that much at the start.”

“Can't be too much like me, then.” Aaron left a gentle slap on Robert's knee. “Come on, tell me real things. What kind of movies does she like, what kind of music, am I going to be expected to buy a shit tonne of make up for her in the future?”

“Anything with gross bits in it, indie bands that'll never see the billboard top one hundred in their whole careers, and _definitely_ not,” Robert said and laughed. “Y'know, you could just knock on the door and ask her yourself. Might be a bit creepy if her long lost brother shows up and knows everything she likes.” 

Aaron rolled his eyes at him then shook his head again. “How am I supposed to meet her when I know she's not gonna believe me?” he asked, voice cracking. “That she's... she's gonna help someone like _him_?”

“I don't know,” Robert answered truthfully. “But what you can do is remember that it won't be forever. That Sandra will come through for you and testify against him. That soon Liv's gonna be living with you and me, and that we'll be our own little family. Bad things aren't permanent, Aaron, no matter how much they seem to be at the time. You've just gotta... accept it, move past it and keep going.”

“Is that what you do when you know something bad's about to happen?”

“I didn't at the start, no. I thought I could just change things and everything would simply be okay, and when things started happening anyway, no matter how badly I wanted to stop it, I thought I was a failure.” Robert sighed. “I try to now, though. Accept it, move past it, keep going. Because if it's true that there are really some things I can't change then,” he shrugged, “I guess that's all I _can_ do, isn't it?”

Aaron watched him for minute, then looked back at Sandra's front door. He did that a few times – alternating between looking at Robert and looking at the house, again and again and again. Then, with a deep exhale, Aaron took off his seat belt with a confident _click_.

“Come on then,” he said, reaching for the passenger side door. “If not for the sake of the trial, then for the sake of your balls.”

With a laugh, Robert followed him.

 

***

Walking through the Mill door after work, Robert took a few seconds to take in the scene in front of him.

Aaron and Liv were sat on the floor by the sofa, surrounded by the robot collection, that had started by the two men realising they both owned a few from the same brand (Robert doubted that Aaron would call it a collection, though), as Aaron showed a few of them to her with a sort of child-like enthusiasm. Liv didn't seem to mind her brother's excitement at all, in fact she looked to be encouraging it; smiling with her teeth on full display.

If he wanted to, Robert could pretend that the date was different. That the three of them had newly moved in, and this was a day that they would've had ( _should've_ had); if Aaron hadn't gone to prison and Robert hadn't been stupid. Just for a second he could, if he wanted to.

But he didn't. He didn't at all.

It was only March, and Liv was still lying to them. Still didn't like him. But Robert didn't mind any of that one bit.

He closed the door behind him to signal that he was here, Aaron smiling at him like he loved him, and Liv narrowing her eyes at him like she didn't trust him.

“Everything okay?” he asked, hanging his coat and bag up. “What are you up to?”

Aaron opened his mouth, but Liv was faster. “Aaron's showing me how big of a nerd you are,” she commented snidely, looking to her brother to make a joke; to bond with her over Robert's weirdness.

“To be fair, at least three of those are mine,” Aaron said, making Liv frown and Robert scoff. (There were _definitely_ more than three). “And I wouldn't want to make fun of the man that's going to be making our tea tonight, would I?”

“Oh, so that's why you're being all nice to me,” Robert said as he ruffled Aaron's surprisingly ungelled hair.

“I'm always nice to ya!” Aaron called out after him as Robert made his way to the kitchen; trying and failing to fix his hair. 

“You are,” Robert said, turning the oven on. “Once a fortnight.”

Aaron made an insulted noise, and Robert heard him get off of the floor and walk behind him.

“I'll be nice to ya once a week instead if you put us some chicken in,” Aaron said suggestively, wrapping his arms around Robert's middle and resting his chin on his shoulder; having to press up on his tip toes to sit there comfortably.

“Once every five days and you might just have a deal.” Robert turned to quickly kiss the side of Aaron's head; catching sight of Liv still sat on the floor as he did so. She looked even smaller than usual from where he was standing, staring but not really looking at the robots on the floor. Like someone who felt forgotten.

“Are you staying for dinner, Liv?” he called, making her head snap up.

“Uh, I dunno,” she said awkwardly. “Probably not. I mean, I told my Mum I'd be back soon, so.”

“We can call her for ya,” Aaron said as he unwound himself from Robert. “I'm sure she won't mind if you want to stay.”

Liv sniffed. “Yeah right, cause you two totally want me spoiling your meal.”

“We do,” Robert said, making them both stare at him. “I mean, you won't be spoiling it, of course you won't be, but we do want you here, Liv.”

“Of course,” Aaron agreed. “You're family. And I like spending time with ya, you know that.”

“You mean that?” Liv asked, but she was looking at Robert; familiar blue eyes glaring into his soul.

“Yes,” Robert said, quickly and clearly, leaving no room for doubt in his voice. He knew Liv needed this, needed to feel wanted by them, to feel part of the family. And Robert giving that to her wasn't only because they needed her on their side of things.

Hesitantly, Liv got to her feet. “Alright then,” she said. “As long as you don't put anything weird in the food.”

Robert smiled, “I'll put the chicken on then.”

 

***

And, yeah, it wasn't exactly easy. Liv still waited until the last second to turn her loyalties around on the stand; Robert still found some way to mess it up. He'd been giving Aaron another pep-talk, reassuring him that they'd win and Gordon would be sent down. But the way he'd worded it had been too certain, too precise.

It could've sounded like Robert had paid someone very important to make things go their way, if they wanted to spin it that way. And Robert was sure that they had done.

But Liv had come good like they knew she would. Sandra, too, had been timid yet impressive.

There hadn't been any doubt, not on Robert's end at least, but still the sound of

_Guilty_

ringing through the Court room was as satisfying as a key twisting into a lock, closing a door.

 

***

“Hey, you!”

Robert turned around. He'd been making a move towards the Woolpack's back door where Aaron was waiting for him in his car. They'd been planning on going for a drive, just to have the experience of being aimless for once, so they didn't have to think. Aaron couldn't stand being around the loud and staggering way Dingle's celebrated, and Robert would do anything to make him feel at ease.

“What are you doing back here?” Robert asked, coming to a stand still.

“Was looking for Aaron,” Liv said, like it was obvious. “Mum's given me an hour to see him, before we go home and she crashes out for days.”

Robert didn't really know what to say to that. “He's in the car out back. We're, um, thinking about getting out of here for a bit.”

That perked Liv up. “Can I come?”

“I don't think it's going to be all that fun,” Robert said. “And your Mum wouldn't like you sneaking off.”

“So? It's not like she ever really has a say in what I do anyway.”

It hurt him to bash her hopefulness down, but he knew Aaron needed to be alone for now. “Look, you can see him another time, alright?” He knew full well that she would. “Aaron needs to be alone.”

“Alone? Yeah, he's gonna be so alone when he's right with you, isn't he?” Liv fired back. “You're always with him, like you're handcuffed to him or summat. It's creepy – and annoying. Why are you trying so hard to control him?”

Maybe last time around he would've though that she really believed that, but he knew better now.

“I know you don't like me,” he said carefully. “I know you think I'm trying to take your brother away from you, or that I'm taking up all his time. But I'm not, Liv, not intentionally. I swear it.”

Liv looked to the ground, shuffling her feet in embarrassment. Just like Aaron.

“And,” he continued, “I need you to know that I'm not planning on going anywhere, not unless he tells me too. And I know that he wants you to stick around, too. So you and me – it's gotta be easier for him if we're friends, hasn't it? Or if we at least tolerate each other.”

Slowly, Liv looked at him. “I don't want to be your friend.”

“You don't have to be. We just have to deal with each other. Until he kicks one of us out, anyway,” he added. It had the desired effect, making the corner of her mouth creep up into something somewhat of a smile. “So, do we have a deal?”

She nodded. “I'm still gonna call you a nerd.”

“I think I can deal with that.”

 

***

There were three things Robert knew right now: one, someone was waking him up, two, it was way too early for someone to be waking him up and three, something smelt like it was burning.

None of which were filling him with confidence for his thirtieth birthday.

“Rob,” came Aaron's voice, shaking his shoulder. “Rob, I've – I think I've broken summat.”

Robert groaned, turning round to face him. “Broken what?”

“I was trying to cook summat and-” he paused suddenly, then left a hasty kiss on Robert's lips. “Happy birthday.”

“Yeah, no, I think I'm more concerned with whatever is burning downstairs than my birthday right now.” He sat up, stretching like a cat would after a nap.

“Okay, I'll show ya, just... don't laugh.”

It was a good thing that he didn't promise, because when Robert saw that Aaron managed to burn a _birthday cake_ , he was in hysterics.

“I told you not to laugh!” Aaron exclaimed, throwing an oven glove at him.

“I thought the birthday boy was allowed to do whatever he wants?” Robert asked, raising an eyebrow.

“That's cancelled this year.”

Robert took a look into the oven in question, where the screen had gone a dark, ugly black ( _and that, Vic, is why you have three ovens_ , Robert thought smugly).

“The oven itself should be alright, you just left the cake in there for too long,” Robert said, scouring the kitchen side as he tried to locate the other oven glove.

Until – oh.

That was definitely not an oven glove.

A small, black box sat on the back of the side, behind a variety of icings and sugar and things. Behind him, Aaron was running hands through his hair and muttering in a frustrated tone, meaning Robert already had the box in his hands by the time Aaron realised that Robert had seen it.

“That's-” Aaron stopped short. “It's, um... would you believe me if I said it's not what it looks like?”

“Not a chance,” Robert said, breathless. “This... no, no! Absolutely not! Not happening. Nope. Not today.”

Aaron's face fell. “No?”

“I mean – not _no_ , no. Just... no!” he exclaimed. “Aaron, I'm supposed to propose!”

“You're...?” Aaron laughed. “You're mad that I'm the one proposing?”

“Yes!” he yelled, like it was obvious. _'Cause it was obvious._ “In October. I was gonna order all this food you liked! We were gonna go have a picnic somewhere. I told you how it ended last time – couldn't you have just given me one chance to actually have it work properly?”

Robert was furious, but Aaron just kept laughing until he was roaring with it.

“This isn't funny, Aaron,” Robert ground out.

“Oh, so it's okay if _I'm_ not allowed to laugh, is it?” Aaron said, wiping at his wet eyes before taking a step towards him. “Are you really mad that I want to propose?”

 _Well_ . “Not that you _want_ to propose. I'm mad because it's supposed to be me doing it.”

“Does it really need to be?” Aaron asked, placing his hands on Robert's shoulders.

“Uh, yeah it does.”

Aaron frowned at him. “Why?”

“Because I messed it up last time,” Robert said, “and I wanted to make it perfect for you.”

“And you think I wanted to propose to you at six o'clock in the morning while your birthday cake is on fire? No. But maybe it's my turn to mess things up.” Aaron gently took the box out from Robert's grasp. “Now, you better let me say this because you won't be hearing anything like this out of me again.” Despite his anger, Robert laughed, but almost choked on it when Aaron dropped to one knee.

“Last week, when you told me what you did on your thirtieth last time round,” Aaron started. “I... felt a lot of things. First I was upset, that you didn't tell me until it was too late last time. Then angry, because that version of me should've done something, should've remembered. But mostly just... love. It's so stupid and I hate that this is even coming out of my mouth, but I just... I just love you. I love ya because you look after me, always, even when things get really bad and everything's so hard to deal with. I love ya because of the way you love me. And the things you do for me, like,” he sniffed, eye's welling up now, “like immediately coming to find me when you wake up one day in one of the worst scenarios I can think of, and trying so hard to give us something that's beautiful and good. Something we deserved to have the first time around but never quite got.

“And because of all that – because I _love_ you – I wanted to give you something I couldn't give you last time. And what better way to surprise the man that knows everything than by beating him at his own game?”

They both laughed, the force of it shaking Robert's tears off his chin and to the floor. It was gross, he probably looked a wreck, first thing in the morning and crying, but he hadn't cared less about his appearance in his life.

“I love you,” Robert said. That was all there was left to say, really. “I love you so much.”

“Marry me then, you idiot.”

Robert sank to his knees and pulled Aaron to him, the ring box hitting the floor as the two of them kissed as if it was the first time. It was wet, and soppy, and everything they both claimed not to be, but they were too happy to care. It was this: them, forever, always. Together.

“I want you to know,” Aaron said, picking the ring box off of the floor, “that this counts as at least a month of me being nice to ya.”

Robert laughed: loud and carefree.

“A whole month?” Robert asked. “How did ya...”

He stopped dead when he saw the ring. It was plain silver, sitting simply in the black box, with lines running around it.

The exact same ring Robert used the last time.

“Is it alright?” Aaron asked, nervous. “Vic helped me pick it out, cause I figured she'd know more about this stuff than I would and-”

Robert kissed him to shut him up.

“It's perfect,” he said, watching as Aaron's face lit up.

The ring slid onto his finger perfectly, and Robert watched as Aaron sighed in relief.

“Are you happy?” Robert asked him, shaking his fingers a bit. Just to see if it felt how he remembered it did.

“I'm the happiest I've ever been.”

Robert had to agree.

 

***

Later that day, in an estate agent in London, a family signed the lease to Home Farm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all are gonna hate me after the next one  
> And i probably should've mentioned, like, a month ago when I started the account that I'm the asshole that runs @emmerdalefanswildin on insta. Follow if you will, it's just me bullying facebook fans.


	15. Old friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron and Robert get married.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I wrote this entire thing today. I had a coursework deadline this week that's been driving me bonkers, but I'm stubborn in the sense that I want to keep consistently getting a chapter a week up. So if this is awful and unedited when you read it, then I'm really really sorry. I'm gonna go over it again in the morning when I can form coherent thoughts and take out mistakes.  
> As always, thank you for reading.

For what had now been almost two years, Robert had been dreaming of this summer. It had been a memory of solace during the hardships, whenever he'd been unsure of himself or the reality of his situation had settled in bone-deep; especially in those first few months, when he didn't know if he'd even be able to make Aaron look at him twice, let alone change the future.

That year – _this year_ – in itself hadn't been the best. At least those first few months (the first half of the year, really) hadn't been great, where the two of them had ricocheted between being friends, to hastily deciding to be together, to forcefully taking on a rebellious teenager. Back then Robert remembered being on the edge of something at all times, whether or not that be with his relationship with Aaron or within himself (it wasn't easy watching the man you love be in pain, after all) and hadn't really been allowed to just _enjoy_ any of it.

But that summer? That was when things had finally started to click. He and Aaron could finally go a day without fighting, Liv decided that she actually _wanted_ Robert to be around, they'd gone away together – just the three of them. Suddenly they'd been living the life Robert had always hoped they would, _knew_ they would. Suddenly Robert was on the inside, buried in a tight knit unit that actually, for once, wanted him there. Suddenly everything was good.

And it had been that thought that had gotten him through it all. That if they could do it then, when Robert had resigned himself into believing that nothing would ever change, then they could do it now. They could make it to summer again.

So it was mightily fitting that that was when they'd be getting married.

Aaron had wanted it to be in June, as soon as possible, he'd said. But May had happened first, and Gordon's death still brought assumptions that Robert must've had something to do with it, and his funeral had still given Robert a night in the slammer. In the end there hadn't been time to get a marriage licence for when Aaron had wanted, but they'd still got it, even if it was for July.

Secretly, Robert wasn't all that fussed about moving the date back, since July, officially, was the start of summer. In fact, Robert was ecstatic.

So was Vic.

“God, look at ya,” she said now, running her hands down Robert's suit-clad arms; smoothing out creases that didn't exist. “All dapper.”

“You've seen me in a suit before, Vic,” Robert pointed out, but really he was basking in her praise. They were stood at the bottom of the stairs in the Mill, Aaron having spent the night away from him (or, well, so everyone thought) at the Woolpack, with Diane sat on the sofa, camera at the ready.

Andy was a no show so far, but Robert had expected nothing less.

“If I'm not allowed to gush over ya on your wedding day, then I don't know when else I'm supposed to be,” Vic said, shushing him. “And... there was a time when I didn't think I was ever gonna see you again, ya know, let alone on your wedding day. Wasn't like any of us ever heard much about your engagement to Chrissie. Which I'm not blaming you for,” she added on quickly, “obviously the two of ya had your reasons, and it wasn't like that wedding was ever going to happen in the first place, but... I want to be happy for you today. I want _you_ to be happy for you today, if that's not too much to ask. Not everyday your brother gets married.”

They both laughed, a little tearfully and out of breath. Diane joined them.

“And don't think that I'm not about to take a good hundred photos of you before we go,” added his step-mother. “Then a million more of you and Aaron at the reception.”

Maybe at his wedding to Chrissie he would've moaned and groaned at the idea, but this was Aaron. Not only just a wedding to Aaron, but an official, legal wedding, where nothing was hanging over their heads. Today they'd get married, tomorrow they'd drive off to this poncy hotel down south where they'd stay for a week, happy and unbothered. Robert wanted a thousand memories of this.

And there was more than a thousand, must have been even before the wedding had even started. Of him and Vic, him and Diane, even him and Liv, when she'd come to see what he looked like before the ceremony.

There was only one in the thousand that he really needed, though. Really wanted.

Aaron had always been the most beautiful man he had ever seen, but in a suit he'd bought just for their wedding, with his hair product free and curly? There was nothing he wanted more than to touch him in that moment, even if only for a little bit, but the music was starting and Chas was pulling him to walk down the aisle before Robert could get a word in.

He looked at Robert until the very last second, his eyes running a marathon up and down Robert's body in the same way that Robert had just been doing to him. Quietly, right before he took his first step down the aisle, Aaron said, “You know...”

Robert smiled. “I know.”

In the end, it had been perfect. They'd both cried an embarrassing amount, at least three Dingles had passed out before it had hit ten, and Aaron had only slow danced with him for a millisecond before he'd pulled away, cheeks flushed from more than just the drink, but Robert was so unbelievably happy that he almost couldn't breath with it.

It was drawing on midnight when the realisation really hit him. He was _married_. He and Aaron, married and happy. If he couldn't breath before then he certainly couldn't now, as he quickly removed himself from the pub while everyone was busy watching Belle try to get Cain to sing something on the karaoke.

He leaned against the wall outside, letting the fresh air fill his lungs. His eyes had started to sting, but he squeezed his eyes shut and focused on the feel of the brick against his back until it slowly faded away. As focused as he was, he wasn't surprised to find Aaron standing beside him when he opened his eyes.

“Needed a minute?” Aaron asked, although his words were so slurred now that his T's were practically non-existent.

Robert nodded.

Aaron took hold of his hand. “Overwhelming?”

“Kinda,” Robert said. “Was just... thinking about our other wedding, and-”

“Don't,” Aaron scolded.

“Don't what?”

“Bring the past here. Today's been...,” Aaron started blinking profusely,” been the best day of my whole life. And if you...,” His jaw clenched and he tried to draw his hand away from Robert's, but Robert held on.

Immediately after, Robert pushed his body off the wall; crowding round Aaron and pushing the two of them together comfortingly. “Hey,” he said gently, putting a hand to Aaron's face. “What's this about?”

Normally Aaron would never answer something like this, but tonight he was drunk and loose. “Do you ever... miss him? That other Aaron from then?”

Robert frowned. “You're the same person.”

“On the outside, maybe, but I don't have the memories that he would. I can't stand out here with you and reminisce about a wedding we had because that wasn't me you were marrying, was it? Not really.”

That knocked Robert back. He'd hated those memories so much, the pain and the heartbreak, that he hadn't really thought about Aaron wanting to have them, wondering about them, being curious about that life he never lived. After a moment, Robert said, “It doesn't matter if you don't have those memories. Not just because I'm selfish and I don't want you to have some of them, but... Aaron, living this all again has been so many things. Sometimes it's been hard, yeah, and scary. But throughout all of it you've been right here with me, even when you had no clue what was going on. And we were never that solid last time, not really. Even when things were good. Even when we had every chance to be – and we had those chances. That was... that was still _us_. We don't need those memories because there's no other you I'd rather be with than _you_.”

Aaron seemed to consider that for a minute, tipping his head back against the wall to look at him. “So you're saying that I'm better, then?” he asked teasingly.

Grinning, Robert said, “I'm saying that you're the same person, just in a different circumstance. The life we've had together here so far has been better, course it has, but that's not why there's nothing to miss, Aaron, it's because it's still _you_. And I'd be with you anywhere, in any year.” Robert leant forward and placed their forehead together softly, holding him close. “I won't lie, though, this version of us is _definitely_ better.”

Laughing, Aaron pulled them into a kiss. “D'ya think they'll notice if we sneak off home?”

Robert scoffed, “Please, that lot are too drunk to know their rights from their lefts.”

They'd walked back to the Mill with their finger's intertwined as they stumbled against each other and laughed every few seconds for absolutely no reason at all. They were a mess, but neither of them cared. They were happy.

Perfectly so.

 

***

“ _Bognor Regis Butlins_?” Aaron asked incredulously, skimming through all of the leaflets Robert had taken from the hotel's reception as he lay on his belly on the bed. They were supposed to be doing it together, but Robert was much more interested in the fact that Aaron was as naked as the day he was born right in front of him. He was in his boxers himself, but he didn't plan on putting anything else on any time soon.

“It could be fun,” Robert said, not really listening. “It's by the sea.”

“So's our hotel,” Aaron said, deadpan. “I thought you were supposed to be proving to me that the South actually has summat interesting to show for itself.”

“You're the one that didn't want to go to London.” As he spoke, he inched his hand closer and closer to Aaron's body. “And it's not like there's much else to do at the seaside than go to the sea.”

Aaron snapped his head towards him, no doubt about to quip something back at him, but zoned his focus onto Robert's wandering hand; creeping a mere millimetre away from Aaron's hip.

He raised an eyebrow at him. “What happened to going out and doing something today?” Aaron asked, but he rolled onto his back when Robert nudged him, spreading his legs as he held himself over his body; not quite touching yet.

“We can do that tomorrow,” Robert said, voice deep and wanting, pressing a kiss to Aaron's neck. “Or the day after that.” Another kiss to his jaw. “Or the day after...” Aaron reached a hand round Robert's head and brought their mouths together, catching Robert off-guard enough for Aaron to wrap his bare legs around Robert's waist, pressing their hips together in a way that made them both moan.

“Careful,” Robert pretended to warn, but the closeness he kept between their faces – so close that Robert could feel the spikes of his beard as he spoke, _God_ – and the lack of effort he put into removing Aaron's legs must have gave him away. “If you keep this up we won't get to go to Butlins.”

Scoffing, Aaron simply pulled Robert in for another kiss, deep and full of longing, turning Robert's insides to liquid.

“I think I've found something better for us to do,” Aaron said.

“Oh yeah?”

Aaron hummed, kissing him again and flipping them around so that Robert was on his back, completely at Aaron's mercy. As he pulled back from the kiss, Aaron moved up Robert's body, locking his thighs on either side of Robert's waist, trapping him beneath him

“Oh, so that's how its gonna be is it?” Robert commented, gripping hard on Aaron's own waist. “Bring it on, Sugden-Dingle.”

 

***

Their honeymoon was spent mostly in bed. They'd had a brief trip to the beach – since, like Robert had said, you _had_ to go when you were down there – where they'd had to eat their ice cream in the car because the seagulls had decided that no, actually, they weren't going to be a normal bird and just bugger off, and Robert's nose had got so sunburnt the skin had started peeling off. After that, Robert was certain that it was probably best if they didn't go out much again, for his own safety and all that. Aaron had pretended to put up a fuss at first (“But what about the joys of Bognor Regis Butlins, Robert? Think of all the smarmy kids we could be sharing a swimming pool with right now!”) until Robert had pouted like a child, and Aaron, being as in love with Robert as he was, had smirked and agreed, kissing Robert's nose gently before dragging him back to bed. Besides, he _did_ like looking after Robert.

But the drive back to Emmerdale had been sombre, even if they hadn't done much while they were away going back to reality was always going to be a jolt to the system. Robert had thought about Liv on the ride back, about how she would be on summer holiday by now, how he knew that she could be even more of a menace than she usually was when there was nothing to occupy her time with. He thought about work at the haulage company, about Holly's upcoming overdose and how he and Aaron hadn't talked about it yet, about Andy's future in the village.

Most of all, he thought about the one thing he'd been trying not to think about all year.

The bypass crash.

“I can hear you're brain whizzing from here,” Aaron said from the passenger seat, looking very comfortable in his black hoodie and sunglasses. “Go on, spit it out. Honeymoon's officially over now.”

Robert sighed, “There are things coming up that we need to talk about.”

“I know,” Aaron said sadly. “Do we... are we gonna try and stop them, or?”

“That's what I don't know.” He shrugged. “We could try, but judging by past events I don't see how its gonna help much.”

“Things are so different to how they were last year though,” Aaron argued. “Katie's not running around spouting shit about some woman. We're engaged – _married_ , even – so much sooner than we were last time. That must mean something has to change in that crash, right?”

Robert wanted to believe that. That these were things that could be stopped. But he'd believed that about the helicopter crash, and Val. He'd believed it before his own shooting. Now, Robert didn't really know what he believed. “I still don't think that getting involved in the crash is a good idea,” Robert said. “I almost lost ya the first time around. I don't really feel like going through that again.”

“Holly, then,” Aaron said, determined. “Just help me deal with Holly. For Adam and Moira.”

An unsettling feeling started to grow inside of him, but he knew how close Aaron was to the Barton's. He couldn't say no to him, not about this. “Alright,” he agreed. “Just Holly. We'll let the crash play out however it's gonna play out.”

Aaron still seemed unnerved at the thought of just letting something like that happen (and, really, Robert was too) but he settled back into his seat and nodded, the conversation over as Aaron turned the radio on.

Chas and Diane were waiting for them outside the Mill when they arrived, Aaron having sent them both a quick text when they were about twenty minutes away. Both of them rushed towards the car doors as they opened, hugging both of them and bombarding them with questions about the hotel, where they went, what they did. Chas even asked to see some photos, to which Aaron sent a pointed look Robert's way then told his Mum that that would have to wait for another day.

All of them crowded inside the flat, Robert being left to carry the bags (because _of course_ he was). Only when he had dumped them on the floor by the front door did Robert notice that something was off.

“Where's Liv?” he asked, looking around. She'd supposed to have been staying at the Pub, but Robert had assumed that she'd ignore that and spend most of her time at home anyway.

“She's made a new friend,” Chas said happily. “The kid of those new people up at Home Farm.”

Aaron didn't notice what was wrong with that sentence at first, firing off a question about this new kid that Robert didn't want an answer to.

“He seems nice enough,” Chas said. “Haven't seen much of his family around the village yet, since they've apparently been busy moving in. Our Sam's been down there, though, and they're re-hiring him as game keeper, so they can't be too bad can they?” She laughed, but Robert's throat went dry.

 _He_. A son.

“I'm sure they'll show their faces sooner or later, pet,” Diane said. “They only moved in last Saturday.”

The day after Robert and Aaron's wedding.

He looked to Aaron, who still wasn't _getting_ it. He watched as his spouse went to make them all some tea, smiling gleefully as he recounted the seagull situation to their visitors.

It was that – the happiness – that made it all that much worse.

 _Please,_ Robert thought, prayed, begged. _Please don't do this to me._

 

***

They'd gone to the pub for dinner that night, too tired to cook, after promising to meet Liv in there later. The whole time they'd been sat in there, waiting for their burgers and chips, Robert had clasped his hands under the table to hide how much they were shaking. Aaron was noticing, of course he was, but if Robert worried him for nothing...

“Here you go,” Marlon said, placing their plates on the table. “The Woolpack's finest cuisine!”

Both of them ignored him, which wasn't really unusual behaviour, but this time it was more to do with the intensity in how Aaron was staring at him than their general rudeness as people. When Marlon had retreated back to the kitchen, first making a comment about appreciating the staff, Aaron made his move.

“What's going on?” he asked, blunt. “You've been acting weird ever since we got back.”

“No I haven't,” Robert said, reaching for the salt. A foolish move.

“Your hands shaking.”

“No it's not.”

“Rob, stop lying to me-”

“I'm not lying to ya!”

Aaron glared at him. “Tell. Me. Now,” he spat. “We sure as hell aren't starting our marriage like this.”

And he would've done – told him, that was. He had even taken a deep breath, running his hands over his jeans in nervousness. But in the end, he hadn't needed to.

Because at that exact second Liv had walked through the front door, drawing both of their eye's to her.

And not only had she been followed by Lachlan White,

but Rebecca White too.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I live like 30 minutes away from Bognor Regis' Butlins, if you're wondering why I chose that particular place, haha


	16. Emphasis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reiteration: the act of repeating something, typically for emphasis.

_Aaron's feet seemed to be moving in slow motion. He knew he was moving them as fast as he possibly could, he had the cramps in his calves to prove it, but everything was still moving so slowly; feet practically dragging against the hospital floor. Normally he wouldn't be so desperate to see his boyfriend laying comatose on a hospital bed, but today he was on a bit of a time limit. Andy would be coming to visit Robert in about half an hour and he needed to spend every second of that time getting everything ready and in place if he wanted to draw a confession out of him._

_Because plan A had failed. The police couldn't find out where the gun had even come from, apparently, let alone connect it to Andy and Ross. To make things even worse, the police had called him in for questioning a second time the other day, where they'd ran through every single reason why Aaron may have wanted Robert dead. It was looking like the police weren't going to be very helpful, so if he was going to get any justice then he was going to have to cheat a little._

_He'd heard from Vic the day before that Andy was thinking of visiting. 'Heard' being a bit generous, since he'd overheard her telling Diane in the pub's kitchen. She'd been a bit frosty with him since Robert had gotten shot, had Vic, but he put that down to his own icy behaviour than anything else. He knew that he wasn't exactly nice on a good day, but he figured he deserved a pass while his fella was hospitalised. But, yeah – Andy was visiting today. Luckily, he'd crossed paths with him in David's that morning telling Doug that he was, in fact, going to see Robert after he'd taken care of a delivery at the farm. Around midday, he'd said._

_So Aaron had grabbed his phone, his Mum's old camera that she only used for weddings these days, and Robert's fancy thing; the one he used to take artistic shots of sunsets and the sea whenever they were away. He was going to use them all – set them all up somewhere in Robert's hospital room, out of sight, and wait until Andy arrived, See, Andy may have been capable of getting his brother shot, but not by his own hand, never by his own hand. Not like a million other angry brothers had been able to do before him. Because Andy, as gruff as he looked, wasn't as strong as he made out to be. Trap him in a room with his victim's unconscious body and his upset boyfriend? He'd be blabbing in minutes._

_(Even if he didn't, Aaron could tell him that he knew. That he'd seen him. And if not then, well, there were plenty of ways of getting a confession out of someone.)_

_Things seemed to be moving quicker now, as he found himself in Robert's ward. His breathing started to come easier._

_When Aaron turned the corner there was a woman standing outside of Robert's hospital room, peering in through the window._

_The woman was dressed too formally for a hospital, her brown hair braided fancily and her black suit seemed to reflect off of the white, sterile walls. She raised an eyebrow when she noticed that Aaron was watching her._

“ _Here to see him?” she asked, nodding her head towards where Robert's body laid._

_He nodded. “Uh, yeah,” he said, all awkward. “I didn't realise someone else was going to be here today.”_

“ _Oh, I'm not,” she said. “Well, I am, but I'm not supposed to be.” She chuckled to herself. “I'm sure he wouldn't like me being here, at least.”_

_She turned to look back through the window, staring at Robert with a kind of satisfaction that made Aaron nervous._

“ _You didn't say what your name was?” she asked._

“ _Nether did you.”_

_She hummed, but looked at him patiently._

“ _Aaron,” he said, but not without annoyance. “Aaron Livesy.”_

“ _Nice to meet you Aaron Livesy. My names Chrissie White.”_

 

***

“Robert?” Liv asked, probably wondering why he was staring at her like he'd seen a ghost. Only, he wasn't staring at her. He was staring at what was behind her.

At hearing his name, Rebecca stood back a little bit, like she was in shock. Like she hadn't expected to see him here.

Lachlan's face didn't change at all.

“Robert?” Aaron followed, confused, but his eyes were wide and glassy. He must have known, must have figured it out. “Tell me... tell me that's not who I think it is.”

Everyone was staring at them now, the pub having gone so silent that you could hear a pin drop. He could feel Chas' eyes on him from behind the bar the most – heavy and full of judgement, even if she didn't know what exactly it was that she was judging him for yet.

“Back room, now,” Robert choked out, clambering out of his chair.

And Aaron looked... Robert didn't want to know what that look was.

“Robert-”

“Back room.” He moved fast, not even looking to see if they were following him. There was no way he was having this conversation in the middle of the pub, where everyone could see and hear and gossip. Not that this would stop them, the news of that stilted tension that had just spread like a disease in there would soon spread similarly through the village; no matter if they could figure out the cause or not.

Turning round and watching everyone filter through the back room, Robert tried to come up with a game plan. For today, for next week, for every day until _that_ day had passed. But he came up with nothing.

“Right,” Liv said, annoyed. “Can someone please tell me what I'm missing here cause I'm starting to feel a little left out.”

Robert looked to Rebecca, and just as quickly looked away. “I like your hair like that,” she said, clearly trying her hand at clearing the air. “I sometimes thought that your hair made you look like an undersized Ken Doll, before.”

Lachlan scoffed a laugh and Liv scrunched her face up in confusion, but Aaron didn't seem to like that at all. Huffing, he moved across the room and stood between the two of them, acting like a sort of blockade. He folded his arms together and looked to Robert expectantly.

Right.

“What – why are you here?” he asked. “In Emmerdale.”

After sighing, Rebecca said, “Dad's been having some health issues. He wanted us to live somewhere together where we could spend time as a family.”

“Oh, and Chrissie suggested Emmerdale, did she?” Aaron spat. Rebecca looked at him for a second, really _looked_ at him, and furrowed her eyebrows.

“And who might you be?” she asked, eyeing Aaron's wedding ring as it gleamed and shined.

“That's irrelevant.” Aaron glared at him. “Did Chrissie tell you that I live here, or not?” Robert asked, remembering the genuine shock on her face earlier.

“No,” she said at the exact same time that Lachlan said, “Yes.”

“I came with her to see you after you got yourself shot,” he said, a sort of smugness entering his voice, no doubt at the thought of Robert being close to death. “Stayed in the car, though. You weren't worth the energy it would've taken to open the door.”

Liv looked appalled and Aaron seemed about ready to snap, so Robert took a step forward.

“I never meant to hurt your Mum,” he started. “And I know that doesn't mean much to ya, but it's the truth. I don't want any arguments, I don't want conflict. I'm sure your Mum agrees and just wants to get on with her life.”

Beside him Aaron made a noise of disagreement, making Rebecca look at him even more closely. 

“I'm sure Chrissie wouldn't have wanted us to move here if she didn't think she could handle seeing you,” she said, putting a hand on Lachlan's shoulder. “There's no reason why we can't all live here peacefully.”

“I'm still confused,” Liv chipped in. Robert gave her an _I'll explain later_ look.

“Whatever,” Lachlan said. Honestly, he didn't really seem to give a shit. “It's not me you should be having his conversation with.”

He walked out of the room with that familiar, teenage, dramatic flair, Rebecca following close behind until Aaron made a coughing noise, drawing her attention.

“By the way,” he said through gritted teeth. “I'm his husband.”

Mouth drawn into a thin line, Rebecca quickly exited the room.

 

***

That night, they gave Liv the skeleton version of the truth. Chrissie and Robert had been engaged, until Robert had ended it after realising that he wanted something different. As far as they could tell she was satisfied with that, although Robert knew she'd soon be asking why Lachlan was so hostile towards him. But that was something they'd deal with later. They had bigger things on their minds at the minute.

“What are we going to do now?” Aaron asked quietly, the two of them laying under the covers in the darkness of their bedroom.

“We go about our life as normal,” Robert replied. “We ignore them as long as they ignore us. Focus on Holly like you wanted to.”

In the dark, Robert could just about make out the lines in Aaron's face shifting. “And Rebecca? What do we do about her?”

“Ignore her, like I just said.”

He felt Aaron shuffle in agitation. “Her being here has to mean something.”

“No, it doesn't,” he said forcefully. “All this means is that we'll have to watch out for Andy now and stop him from getting with my,” he grimaced, “bitch of an ex. That's all.”

After a long period of silence, Aaron whispered, “Babies and deaths. We put them on the list.”

“We thought a lot of things were going to happen that didn't,” he snapped. “This means nothing, okay? Absolutely nothing.”

Aaron fell silent again, but Robert could tell he was upset. Could feel it rolling off of him. He didn't want to end the night like this, he wanted to reassure him.

“Do you still trust me?” he asked gently.

Slowly, Aaron nodded.

“Then trust that me when I say that I'm not going to talk to any of them unless I have to. Trust me when I promise that I wouldn't lie to you about this.”

Aaron nodded again and Robert wrapped his arms around him.

“We're going to be alright,” he said. “Trust me.”

 

***

“ _His ex-fiancée?” Aaron blanched, feeling like his eyes were popping out of his head. Whenever he'd imagined what she might look like he'd always found himself picturing an old hag sat in a just as old, dirty house, like the one in that Victorian movie they'd made them watch in year eight. Maybe he'd done it to give himself some more confidence, or maybe it was because it was easier to imagine Robert wanting to marry her entirely for her money than it was to entertain the thought that this woman was remotely attractive. And here she was, younger than he'd thought she would be and decidedly not a hag. Not even close to one._

_(Aaron may have been gay, but he wasn't blind.)_

“ _Mentioned me, has he?” she asked smugly. “If you want to tell me that he's gotten drunk and spilled his guts out about the mistake he made leaving me, then I won't hold it against you. Friends are allowed to make fun of friends.”_

_Even the thought of Robert missing her made Aaron clench his fists roughly, digging his nails into his palms. “I'm not his friend,” he bit out. Chrissie raised an eyebrow at him. “I'm his boyfriend.”_

_She cackled. Actually cackled, like an evil witch, throwing her head back and everything. All Aaron could do was keep his hands clenched tight; he didn't know what he'd do if he didn't._

“ _I can't believe it,” she stuttered through laughs. “I'd actually convinced myself that he was joking for a while. Or lying to let me down gently.” She sniffed, rubbing a finger under he eyes where she had began to tear up. “Robert and a man. God, you couldn't make this up.”_

“ _What's that supposed to mean?”_

“ _Oh, nothing against you personally,” she said, and Aaron almost believed her. “I'm sure you know by now that Robert's a very certain type of way. He likes his control, he likes to be the one making decisions. I always imagined that being with a man would frustrate him.”_

_Aaron frowned. “We've been together since December,” he argued. He loved Robert, he loved his relationship with him, and he wasn't going to let what was basically a stranger make assumptions about them. “I think it's a bit late for him to be getting annoyed and running off.”_

“ _Maybe,” she shrugged. “But then, Robert's never really known when to give up and run off, has he? I'm testament enough to that.”_

 

***

Robert didn't have to worry about Andy for very long.

He'd been working in the café when his brother had sat himself opposite him suddenly, looking all kinds of nervous.

“I wanted to let you know myself,” he'd said, cutting straight to the chase. “Before anyone else could tell ya.”

“Let me know what?” Robert asked. “And I thought... I thought we weren't really speaking right now.”

“We aren't. But still, you should probably know that,” he clasped his hands together, “I've decided to leave Emmerdale.”

Robert had sat up straight. “What? Why?”

“It's not the same anymore. Not without Katie.”

And Robert had theorised a lot about how Andy would leave. Him leaving on his own terms, with his own free will, hadn't been one of them. “But you love the village. It's your home.”

“Homes can change,” he said simply. “And I think it's time mine did.”

“Where will you go?”

“Scotland. I've been offered a job at this agricultural company up there. It won't just be farming, but I think I need that change. Plus, it's close enough that Debbie can bring the kids up to see me on school holidays, or I can come back down. I've thought about it a lot and it feels right. It feels like something that Katie would've wanted for me.”

It did feel right – _too_ right. That all too familiar sinking sensation flooded him, but Aaron didn't see what was wrong about this.

“He was going to leave anyway,” Aaron said later. “Better by himself than being chased off by the police.”

“Is it by himself, though?” Robert couldn't help but ask. “If it's that woman or that voice in your head – can it really be his choice?”

Aaron didn't seem to want to think about that. “I don't think we can stop him, either way,” he said. “And at least now we can focus on other stuff – like Holly.”

Robert nodded, and let the topic slide as Aaron dived into plans on how they could stop it. He just stayed silent, ignoring the feeling that this was somehow going to go terribly wrong.

 

***

“ _But he did,” Aaron argued. “He left you when he knew he had to and he found me. And now he's happy – happier than you've ever made him.”_

_Chrissie scoffed. “I don't know how much you think you know about our relationship,” she said. “But it lasted years – years of him lying and cheating and scheming. And the reason he finally told me wasn't because he felt bad for me, or wanted me to know the truth. It was because he was bored. Because he couldn't be bothered to lie anymore. And he'll grow tired of lying to you one day, like he always does. Just you wait.”_

 

***

The issue with Holly was that Robert was never close enough to the situation to know why and how it happened, just that it did. Her dying of an overdose was the most useful information Robert had, and even then they didn't know when she'd taken the drugs, or how long it took for her to overdose.

Robert had suggested simply calling an ambulance about an hour before they knew she'd be found dead, or going over there themselves to check on her that day. But, they didn't even know _where_ she would be. So Aaron wanted to do one better – he wanted to stop her from taking anything that day at all. They'd planned on following her around the day before, but there was one thing both of them had forgotten about: Aaron's trip to France. Adam was adamant that Aaron, having already lived in France, had an advantage in talking to clients, and it had to be him that went. This left Robert with the responsibility of watching Holly himself.

And he didn't want to do it.

Not that he didn't care if Holly lived or died. He did, how could he not, but he'd been here before. He'd thought he could save someone that was destined to die all along. And those had been situations that Robert himself held a hand in, things he could predict and influence, but this? Robert didn't even know where to begin.

As soon as he'd managed to bin Liv off at Gabby's, he'd got into his car and waited outside Butler's, just down the drive, where he'd sat for almost an hour before realising that nothing was going to be happening here. He slumped back in his seat, rubbing a hand across his face. This felt pointless.

Still, he pulled out of the drive and drove back down to the village in the hope that he'd see her there. He parked down the main street and went to go into David's to see if anyone had seen her – just as Rebecca was walking out.

“God, Robert, you should watch where you're going,” she laughed, even thought the two of them had barely touched one another. “How have you been? I've barely seen you.”

“Yeah, I think there's a reason for that,” he tried to dismiss her, but she took a step closer to him.

“Don't you think me and you should have a conversation?”

“Can't say I do, no.” He tried to walk around her and into the shop, but she blocked his path. He sighed, “There's nothing to say. You lot are supposed to be ignoring me, anyway.”

She crossed her arms. “I thought that only applied to Chrissie.”

“Don't be stupid,” he grounded out. “You know exactly why I'm ignoring you.”

Morphing her face into something resembling sympathy, she batted her eyelashes at him. “I know it must be difficult,” she cooed. “Having your ex around after you've just gotten married. And then there's me, the ex who's not an ex, swanning around while Aaron doesn't even know-”

“He does know.” That seemed to take her back, her eyes widening in alarm. “I told him about our past months before you ever showed your face around here. Because, unlike with _either_ of ya, I actually want to be honest with him.”

“Honest?” she said, rolling it around on her tongue like it was something foreign. “How about you start being honest with yourself.”

“About what?”

“You're not gay, Robert.”

He let out a laugh. “So _that's_ what this is about.”

“I know you,” she continued, ignoring him. “I know that this is a game to you – a power trip. You love knowing you can have whoever you want no matter what, but that's never going to satisfy you, is it? He can't give you that – the same permanence that I can.”

“What, like a child?” His stomach rolled as he said it. “You think I really care about any of that? I thought you said you knew me.”

With a glare full of thunder, she stared him down, raising her chin high. “Tell me now that you've never lied to him,” she said. “Tell me that you've never withheld anything from him that he should've known because it benefited you. Tell me now and I'll leave you alone.”

And he couldn't, could he? Not the Robert of now, and certainly not the Robert of then.

“That's not fair,” was all he could say.

“Neither are you.” She moved past him, leaving Robert with only the ability to watch her go. “When he realises that he can't handle you, come and find me.”

After she'd disappeared from sight, Robert ran back to his car.

 

***

“ _I don't believe you,” Aaron said._

“ _And I don't care,” she replied. “Neither of those things change who Robert is. Or what he's capable of. Or alter the fact that you're just like me, and everyone else that came before me.” She looked at him sadly. “I suppose all I can do is wish you good luck.”_

_Aaron shook his head. “If you hate him so much, why did you bother coming?”_

_She shrugged. “Had to see it for myself. He leaves you like that, you see – bitter and angry and hoping that he gets what's coming for him.”_

_With that she strutted down the hall, leaving Aaron stood alone; his mind buzzing like the machinery surrounding him._

 

***

Robert sat in the Mill. A million feelings were flying through him – sickness, fear, paranoia. But mostly there was that sinking feeling in his stomach, making his legs shake and his head ache. For the longest time he'd been trying to figure out what that feeling meant, but he knew what it was now. It was dread. It was foreboding.

It was inevitability.

His phone rang, the sound almost stinging him, and he sombrely checked the screen to see it was Aaron that was calling. He didn't want to speak to him. He didn't want to have to tell him about his day, and put on a pleasant persona. He didn't want to _lie_ to him, desperately didn't want to. But he also knew that he needed to answer.

“Hiya,” he said, keeping his voice as light as he could.

“ _Bonjour_ ,” Aaron replied, his accent pulling more into Italian than French. “Are you alone?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I'm just at home.”

“You've finished with Holly already?”

Everything stopped.

“Rob? Did ya hear me?”

He – he didn't know how he'd let himself-

“Rob?

He'd forgotten. He'd actually forgotten.

And it was all Rebecca's fault.

“Yeah, I hear you,” he said.

And he began to lie.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "To reiterate is when you are repeating yourself with varying effect, usually to emphasise a point, while to iterate is to repeat something aimlessly over and over again."


	17. Clarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reiteration: that action of repeating something, typically for clarity.

_"No," Chrissie said. "No, I would have preferred it if you hadn't cheated in the first place."_

 

 

 

There was something digging into Robert's back.

Something small and round and hard. He must've been laying on it for a while, because his back was starting to do that thing where it went cold around the pain, like his body was trying to numb it out. Carefully, he arched his back up and stretched as his body clicked and moaned. The action made the pain in his back increase sharply, causing him to roll over and onto his stomach with a _thud_.

The next thing he was aware of was the fact that there was grass in his face. Then, that he had no clue _why_ there was grass in his face.

And that he didn't know where he was.

Blinking his eyes open, he was met with the sight of an open field, spreading for what looked like miles around him. Looking up, he saw that the sky was a bright blue; no cloud in sight. And a nice, clear sky wasn't exactly a call to panic, but the last memory Robert had was of clouds. He was just about to walk inside, he remembered, and he'd looked up at the sky as he wondered if it was going to rain. That hadn't been the only thing he'd been wondering, but that was the issue.

He couldn't _remember._

“Don't panic,” came a voice from behind him. “The memory loss is normal. You'll get it back soon, anyway.”

Robert turned his head. A woman stood over him, towering over where he laid on the ground in a way that made him feel like a child, but was blacked-out by the roaring sun against her back; obscuring Robert's vision and making him squint. There was nothing he could make out from her appearance, but that voice... he knew that voice.

“Who are you?” Robert spluttered out as the undeniable chill of panic set in. “What do you want from me?”

She seemed to find that funny. “That's irrelevant,” she said. “This is about you.”

Robert blinked. “Me?”

“Yes, of course it is. You were the one sent back in time, after all. The one forced to face his biggest mistakes.”

“That was you,” Robert said, slowly realising and putting the pieces together. “You're the woman behind what Katie was doing. And-,” that was when he felt it, the panic, the desire to run far away. “And you're the one that's done this to me.”

“That depends on what you believe was done to you. Tell me: were you sent back in time, or were you sent a prophetic vision of the future? Have you been cursed, or blessed with the chance of reformation? Is any of this real at all?”

Shaking his head, Robert said, “What I believe doesn't matter.”

“Have you not been paying attention?” she snapped. “This is about _you_. What you believe, how you react, what you decide. And now it's time to talk about those things.” Even in the harsh sunlight, Robert could still see the movement of her head as she cocked it to the side, as if in thought. “Tell me about the bypass crash.”

“There's nothing to say. It still happened,” Robert said, and then found himself stilling. He hadn't remembered any of that before, but as he spoke – it was as if he regained memories as he talked about them.

“It may have done, but as I said that's irrelevant. Tell me about what that day was like for you.”

 

***

Even if they weren't going to be getting engaged today, Aaron still wanted to celebrate. And Robert wasn't exactly one to ever tell Aaron no.

That was how they ended up like this: the two of them in a very compromising position as Liv barged in, half way into a speech about needing money for the bus. She screamed, dashing out the room like the flash as Robert pushed his husband off of him and onto the floor.

“I hate the both of ya!” Liv called from down the hall. “And you both officially owe me a tenner each!”

Aaron groaned, and Robert couldn't tell if it was from the loss of money or the impact on his back. “Alright!” he called back, getting up groggily. “There goes our anniversary celebrations.”

“I don't think that anniversaries of engagements are really a thing,” Robert teased, sitting up on the bed to give Aaron an apologetic rub. “Especially if that engagement happened in another life time.”

“Didn't see you complaining,” Aaron muttered, before looking at the clock on the wall and sighing. “I need to be at the Scrapyard in half an hour anyway. You know what Adam's like when I'm late.”

There was a sudden pang in Robert's chest, dispelling any sort of good mood from his body. “And, uh, how has he been lately? Adam?”

Aaron turned sombre. “Getting better, I think. Can't really say the same for Moira, but...,” He must have seen it, the guilt splashed across Robert's face, because he said, “Don't-don't blame yourself for this, Rob. You did all you could. It's not like it would've changed much anyway, Holly was always going to die, wasn't she? That doesn't make her dying any less awful, yeah, but it _does_ mean that I don't want to see ya looking guilty. I was the one who said we should try and stop it even though we knew that it wasn't possible. If one of us should feel guilty, it's me for putting that weight on your shoulder's.”

That only made Robert feel even worse. “No. You were just trying to do the right thing, there's no harm in that,” he said, images of Val and Katie flashing through his mind. “If we should take anything from this, it's that we need to stay as far away from the bypass as possible. I don't want you getting hurt.”

“I know, I'm not planning on it,” he reassured him. Aaron's eyes downcast all of a sudden, like something terrible had crossed his mind. “Rob... do you think we're good people?”

Robert frowned. “Why are you asking me something like that?”

“I don't know,” he said. “It's just... you're not supposed to ignore stuff like this, are ya? Not when you know that someone is going to die.”

“There's nothing we can do, Aaron. We save James Barton today, he dies a year, two years, on in the future. That's not saving his life, that's just... extending it.”

“Maybe,” Aaron said. “I guess that as long as we're trying out best to deal with all this, then how bad can we be, right?”

Robert nodded and gave him a small smile, but inside he just felt hollow. Because he'd like to believe that: that as long as they _tried_ to do something then failing didn't matter. That it didn't matter if Holly died because Robert had tried to stop it.

But he hadn't tried. Not really. He hadn't tried at all; barely wanted to in the first place.

“Right,” Aaron proclaimed suddenly. “I'm gonna have a quick shower. I'll see you down there later, yeah?”

Half-heartedly, Robert nodded and watched Aaron walk out of the room and said something to Liv. In the back of his mind, something was telling him to ring Paddy, or Rhona, or Emma Barton and tell them not to leave their homes today, to give them somewhere to be that wasn't on that road today. But Robert found himself shaking his head and laying back down against the soft sheets, willing himself to not think about Holly Barton or the bypass or anything at all.

There was no point in thinking about any of it, because there was nothing to be done about any of it. All that was left to do was sit back and wait.

 

***

“Do you really think that there was nothing you could've done to stop the bypass crash?” the woman asked curiously.

“If I had I would've done something.”

“Like you did something for Holly?” Robert searched for any sort of judgement or accusation in her tone, but it was the same as it had been before – just plain curiosity.

He found himself unable to answer, mouth opening and closing like a fish's might. At this point he couldn't continue to look up at the woman, the sun behind her becoming too irritating, and could only stare at his own legs in silence.

“Robert,” she tried again. “Who told you that deaths were set in stone?”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Well, no one. But-”

“But what?”

“It was obvious that was what was happening.”

“How?”

Robert looked back up at her, but it was a struggle to do so. As he squinted up at the figure, he thought about Katie and how all of her actions past February 5th 2015 made no sense. He thought about how she caused the helicopter crash, for seemingly no reason at all.

He felt as if he was going to be swallowed up into a pit of his own confusion.

“Tell me more about that day.”

 

***

When Robert pulled into the Scrapyard, there were three things he immediately noticed that were wrong. Firstly, that Adam's car wasn't there and neither was he. Second, that Lachlan was standing against the Portacabin on his phone. And, lastly, that if Lachlan was just standing there, then where was Aaron?

Suddenly, Rebecca came flouncing out of the Portacabin, clutching onto the massive hat she was wearing, and signalled to Lachlan to follow her. When she saw Robert sat in his car, she smiled brightly and waved at him.

“Your fellas in there,” she said jovially, pointing to the Portacabin as Robert got out of the car. “I'd warn you though, he doesn't appear to be in the highest of spirits.”

Robert narrowed his eyes at her. Aaron had been fine this morning. “Why?” he asked. “And what are you even doing here?”

“We were just on a walk, weren't we Lucky?” They looked to the boy, but he remained engrossed in his phone. “And I thought it would be nice to pop in and ask how Adam's doing. I think bringing it up might have upset Aaron a little bit.”

There was bang from the Portacabin, and they both turned to see Aaron stood in the doorway looking less than pleased to see them talking. He had his arms crossed tightly against his chest and his jaw firmly clenched as he nodded toward inside the Portacabin, silently telling Robert to _hurry up and get in here._

“I better be going,” Robert said dismissively, ignoring her goodbye call as he nervously marched inside.

Sat at his desk, Aaron had his feet up and his head thrown back on his chair; his arms remaining crossed. If Robert didn't know any better, he would've thought that Aaron was daydreaming or lost in thought. No, Aaron wasn't lost. Sometimes his husband could be brash, but he did know how to contemplate his next move. And this was Aaron contemplating.

“Where's Adam?” he asked.

He didn't even turn to look at him. “Out with Vic.” It was blunt and toneless, his voice. Robert tried to prod fun at it.

“Rebecca said you were in a bad mood,” Robert tried to say lightly, moving towards him until Aaron snapped a disapproving glare in his direction.

“I noticed,” he grumbled, pausing to chew on his bottom lip. “Thought you weren't speaking to her.”

“I'm not,” he defended himself. Then, scoffing, said, “Can hardly just ignore her if she tries to start talking to me, can I? And you saw it yourself, we weren't even talking for a minute.”

“Was it only for a minute the last time?” Robert stared at him blankly. “The last time she spoke to you, Robert,” Aaron spat. “On the day Holly died. She told me all about that. Went on and on about how strange she found it, the thought that you and her were just chatting while she was about to die. How bloody strange.”

He swallowed deeply, his heart pumping fire through his system a mile a minute, making his chest burn and his face flush. “Okay, yeah we did speak to each other,” he admitted, forcing himself to not trip over his words. “And it may have been for longer than a minute. But that conversation had nothing to do with me not being able to save Holly, I-”

“Holly? Who said I was mad about Holly?”

Robert swallowed again. “I mean... I thought that maybe-”

“No,” Aaron said, drawing his eyebrows together. “We talked about Holly this morning, I told ya that it wasn't your fault. I'm mad at ya because you didn't tell me about... _her_.”

Instantly, Robert felt his body relax; the fire in his veins extinguishing themselves.

“It was nothing. I didn't want to worry ya over nothing.”

“What did she talk to you about?”

Really, he had two options. It would be easy to lie, so, _so_ easy. To just say that she talked to him about trivial things, like the weather and the overpricing in the Café. But then there was the option of honesty. Something he had vowed to be better at at the start, and failed to do time and time again. Something he had never been very good at.

“She...” He sighed. “She assumed that you didn't know about our past together, but I set her straight. To her surprise and offence.” He stopped himself, but Aaron could tell there was more and made a _go on_ sound. “Rebecca – she said she didn't believe I was into men, that she thought this was a game for me. I set her straight again.”

Throwing his feet off the table, Aaron angrily sat up. “And you didn't think I would want to know that?”

“What difference would you knowing have made?”

“If I'd known we could've made a plan to deal with her together. You told me how she acted the last time and the what kind of things she would say to ya. It's exactly the same, everything's repeating itself and you're just going to let it!”

“How?” Robert grounded out, teeth clicking together. “Because I didn't tell ya about this one conversation? You seriously think I _want_ all of that to happen again?”

Aaron took a deep breath. “I don't think you want it to, no. I think you're digging your head in the sand and refusing to deal with it and that's what's going to be your downfall, cause ignoring them isn't going to help anything.”

“What do we do then? What can we possibly do that will any sort of difference?”

“You be more honest with me,” Aaron said. “Which I shouldn't even have to be telling ya at this point. Every time she makes a move on ya or tries to get into either of our heads, we tell each other. That's the only way we're gonna get through this.”

And Robert agreed with that wholeheartedly. But it was there again, that nagging voice in the back of his head, telling him that things probably weren't going to pan out that way.

“Okay,” was all he could think to say.

“Good.” Aaron patted his hand. “And if there's anything you haven't told me yet that you think you should...?”

_The chat with Rebecca cause Holly's death. Hearing the words she said, thinking that I could still ruin us just like I did last time, caused me to crash and burn and meltdown, and I forgot. Really, I hadn't even wanted to save her in the first place, because I've been there before, thinking that I could save someone, and it was soul-destroying. Maybe that's why I let it get to me so much, or maybe it was the universe trying it's best to keep me away. Either way, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm a liar, I'm sorry I never learn, I'm sorry that I'm probably going to throw away anything I've learned from this. I'm sorry that I am, and always will be, Robert Sugden, professional cheater and destroyer of lives._

“No,” he said. “There's nothing.”

 

***

The woman tutted at him. Her showing a type of opinion and emotion took Robert back a little, making his eyebrows raise. “Why did you lie to him?”

“I didn't,” Robert said. “He said to tell him if I thought I should. And I didn't think so.” 

She hummed thoughtfully. “Did you know,” she said, “that the memories we have aren't memories of the actual event? Every time you recall something, you're recalling the last time you recalled it and not what really happened. They say that's why people can be so bad at learning from their mistakes, because the memory that reminded them of _why_ they needed to change is dulled down over time, it looses it's weight on them. Would you say that you have a similar problem when it comes to lying?”

For a moment he allowed himself to entertain that thought. Over the years he'd told many lies, and approximately none of them had turned out well for him. You'd think that by now he would've...

_No_ , he thought with certainty.

_He had_.

“I wouldn't say that,” Robert answered. “I know that I shouldn't lie in the way that I do. I _know_ that, the impact hasn't gone from me.”

“Then why do you still do it?”

“To protect myself,” he said simply. “I lied about being straight because I thought if everyone knew they'd... they'd react like Dad did. I lied to Aaron whenever I was cruel to him because I thought that if he hated me then I wouldn't have to deal with my feelings for him. I was... _deceitful_ to Rebecca and never properly turned her down because I liked knowing that I could still make women be attracted to me – and because I knew it would help me get Andy back. When I lie about things... I know I shouldn't. And I tried to change that and be honest this time around: I told Chrissie that I'd cheated on her, I came out by myself, I told Aaron everything when he asked me to. But when it came to telling him about Holly I-I don't know, I felt like I needed to protect myself again.”

The woman didn't say anything for a while, whether or not it was because she was in thought or not Robert didn't know, but Robert took that time to take a better look at his surroundings. There really were no clouds, nor any sort of breeze, or animals or trees or buildings. In fact it felt as if the two of them were being contained somewhere else, far away, somewhere where no one could ever find them. Robert thought that if he were to start walking he'd eventually hit a brick wall, or fall completely off the edge.

In a blink of an eye, the open expanse Robert had been staring into was filled. Black, brown, blue and green took up his vision, the colour changing every few seconds as if someone was pressing a switch. Blinking, he sat back. It was the woman, she had sat beside him; he hadn't even seen her move. As he stared at her he tried to make out any sort of physical feature, but it was as if her face was blurred or censored, completely out of focus. Despite that, Robert thought that she might've been smiling – the air seemed warmer with it and the grass greener.

“Tell me about Aaron's birthday.”

 

***

“Florida?” Chas read the destination on the plane tickets aloud. “I would've thought your first trip to the states would've been to Vegas.”

Robert coughed and Aaron suppressed a snort, the two of them giving each other a knowing glance. Since Robert had already told him about the surprise he'd planned last time, he'd figured a new, and better, birthday surprise was in store for this time around. Instead of dressing the back room up like a Casino, he and Liv had done up the inside of the town hall into a sunny beach, with a yellow rug thrown on the floor and a paddling pool placed in the centre with Disney related decorations filling up the extra space. It had been a little less spectacular than last times, but when Aaron had seen it earlier that day he'd belly laughed and given them both a warm hug, so Robert had deemed it as a success.

“What, and let this one spend all my money?” Robert laughed. “Dream on.”

Aaron gave him a nudge, but it was light and he was smiling widely. “Me spending all the money? More like it'll be me watching him overestimate himself and loose everything in a game of roulette.” Aaron leaned over the bar to take the tickets back from Chas as she gleefully nodded her head in agreement. “Although, it might be just as dangerous at Disney. You never can resist those rigged games where you can get a stuffed toy.”

“You love when I win you things,” Robert pointed out.

“Well, its one better than you nicking things for me.”

At that, Aaron's phone gave a sharp buzz, cutting through Chas' laughter and Robert's grumbling. He quickly checked it and just as quickly turned it back off, shoving his phone back in his jeans.

“Who was it?” Chas asked.

Aaron shrugged. “Unknown number. Clients wouldn't contact me on my own phone and it wasn't an O-eight-hundred, so. Might've been a wrong number.” He shrugged again.

If it was any other day, Robert would've caught that that was weird.

“I suppose you two want a couple of pints,” Chas said, already grabbing a glass. “You two can go in the back if you want.”

Robert would've said that they'd have them out front, but right that second Chrissie and Rebecca entered the pub together, Rebecca seemingly not fazed at all by their presence and Chrissie only stilling for half a second before propping herself up at the bar about a metre away from them.

“We'll go in the back,” he said, but Aaron put a hand on his arm.

“No, it's fine. We were here first we shouldn't have to run off.”

And Robert was an idiot for not saying no.

In the next half an hour, Aaron received three more phone calls from the unknown number. As it went on Robert could see his spouse getting more and more agitated, but kept refusing to turn his phone off in some sort of act of rebellion against this anonymous caller. He'd also noticed how Rebecca would turn her head towards them whenever the phone would ring, her eyes slanting expectantly each time, as if she was waiting for something.

It was at the fourth ring that Aaron gave it to her.

“Bloody hell,” he snapped, pulling his phone out. “Look, I better take it. Since it's obviously so important that they talk to me.”

He then raced into the back room, and, to her credit, Rebecca at least waited until Aaron had disappeared from view before practically leaping out of her seat at the bar; Chrissie silently shaking her head disapprovingly as she went. She brashly sat herself in Aaron's seat and continued to stare at Robert expectantly.

When it became clear that she wasn't going to say anything, Robert snapped, “What do you want?”

“To see how you are,” she replied innocently. “And to see if you've thought about our previous conversation.”

“What was there to think about? I've already planned the trip.” Because Rebecca had cornered him the week before and had been adamant that she help him organise Aaron's birthday surprise, or at least give Robert the money to pay for it, with the sly addition that he give her something in return, of course. Unfortunately for her, Robert wasn't stupid enough to say yes.

“As lovely as that one was, I was talking about the one before.” She almost seemed to beam as she spoke. Robert wondered if that must hurt, to be so overwhelmingly fake-positive at all times. “How was it – paying for that holiday? Must've run you a bit thin.”

“As if you know anything about my financial situation,” he said, but she was right; it had. “And I don't care about the money anymore. I wouldn't have married him if I did.”

Rhythmically, she began taping her fingernails on the grubby pub table. “Maybe. Still, there's a part of me that doesn't think you know what you really want.”

“Because I'm bisexual?”

“No,” she blanched, but the labelling made her shift slightly in her seat. “Because I _know_ you. And I know you can't actually be happy. Not really.”

Robert began thinking of how he could snap back at her. Maybe a _then you clearly don't know me as well as you think you do_ or a _I'm surprised you think at all_. But he was interrupted by a sharp intake of breath behind the bar.

It was Aaron. He had his phone still in his hand, but it was hanging loosely by his side as he analysed the two of them.

His eyes shinning, beginning to fill with tears.

 

***

“Aaron!” he called, chasing him back into the back room. “Aaron that wasn't – we promised we'd talk yeah? And that was nothing, I didn't ask her to sit down or-”

“This isn't about that!” Aaron yelled back. “Although I do want to know why you'd even let her sit down in front of ya in the first place.”

“I can't just make a scene every time she so much as comes near me.”

“She shouldn't be coming near ya at all. Full stop.” Aaron was fuming, his shoulder's bunching up and his face _red, red, red_. “But this isn't about that.” Suddenly Aaron was lifting his phone up and shoving it in Robert's face. “I just got a very, _very_ interesting phone call about ya. Can you guess what it was about?”

He didn't even have to think about it. It was like the knowledge was built into him, a part of his skin and bones. Weakly, he said, “Holly.”

With as much force and vigour as is body was exuding, he nodded, the phone shaking in his hand. “You lied to me,” he said, voice cracking. “You promised you wouldn't do it anymore and you _lied_ – and about something like that.” He kept shaking his head as his eyes grew wetter and the tightness in his body reduced as his sadness overtook his rage. “Why? Why didn't you tell me?”

“You said to tell ya if I thought you shouldn't,” he explained desperately. “And-and I didn't see why it mattered. Holly would've died anyway, you said that yourself.”

“How are we ever gonna know if that was set in stone now?” Aaron practically threw at him. “All because you got scared and ran away and _forgot._ How do you forget something like that?”

As much as he was panicking, Robert had found himself realising exactly what was happening. Someone had _told him_. And there was no way that anyone could do that, could know enough about the circumstances to do so.

“Aaron,” he said slowly. “Who was on the phone with you?”

He looked as if he was going to keep arguing with him, maybe start accusing him of changing the subject, but his shoulder's completely dropped and his eyes widened significantly. “It was...,” he swallowed, “it was some woman.”

They both froze, the reality of the situation seeping in. Of course, they'd known before that this woman was some sort of powerful, omnipotent figure, but experiencing it first hand – receiving proof that she was real – was jarring.

“Of course,” Aaron said suddenly. “Of fucking course. How could we have not got it until now?”

Now Robert was just confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Isn't it obvious? It's Rebecca, or Chrissie. One of them must be the woman.”

“Um,” he started, not even really knowing where to begin with that. “Why do you think that?”

“The voice on the phone, it was familiar. I knew I'd heard it before but I couldn't place where,” he said, almost as if he was ranting. “And that must be it, mustn't it? Who else would wanna do this to ya?”

Honestly, Robert could name at least ten, but even then this made no sense. “I was just in the bar with them,” he argued. “How could one of them have been on the phone with you?”

“Well, how could one of ya have sent you back in time? None of the how matters – it's obvious that they've done this to torture ya. To make you live in a world where you know everything that's gonna happen but can't change any of it. It's _them_ , they're behind this.”

He wanted to believe that it was that simple, that they could define what this whole thing was with something so simple as revenge. But still, that made no sense. “And why go to all this trouble? I slept with her last time, she was having my _baby_. She wouldn't need to go through all this And for what – to just prove that I'd do it again?”

But Aaron seemed to like that idea. He _really_ seemed to like it. “Yeah, maybe. Maybe that's all this has been. A way for them to make you cheat on me again, a way to destroy us again. It makes perfect sense.”

“I don't... I don't know,” he said, because he didn't. “They're bad, but they're not _that_ bad. And I think I would've noticed if they had magic.”

“You wouldn't though, would ya? Because they want you to cheat again, so they can't have you notice any of that. It's like that little voice in my head and whatever was controlling Katie. It's messing with you, you're not as free from any of this as we thought you were.”

“Aaron-”

“You'll just have to completely ignore them from now on. No contact at all. We-We'll just have to stay together at all times to make sure they can't get to ya.”

Aaron was rambling, barely even making eye contact with him even as he stared him directly in the face.

And that really should've been Robert's final warning.

 

***

“So maybe I should've told him,” Robert conceded. “But at the time it felt like the right thing, alright? I couldn't have known that you'd mess it all up.”

“This is about you facing your mistakes, I couldn't simply let you bypass them all. It's strange, usually people don't learn the patterns, or see the signs. They usually still find themselves in the same situations, or at least in most of them. But you were very adamant that that wasn't going to be you, weren't you?” Suddenly the planner – the _first_ planner - was on his lap, opened to the last page where Robert had written his plan on it. “You were quick to pin point the issues.”

“They weren't exactly hard to figure out,” he said. “So that's why you were using Katie? But how was the helicopter crash one of my mistakes?”

“It wasn't one. And Katie was already dead,” the woman said, entirely unfazed. “She was supposed to die in a car crash as she left Emmerdale. I only kept her alive long enough to get you shot.”

“So that Gordon could come in?”

She didn't confirm or deny it. “I was impressed with how you handled that. I was sure you'd still pay Ryan.”

“That I didn't hardly matters now. I still messed up. I still left Aaron paranoid and afraid that I was going to cheat on him.” He sighed. “I failed.”

Even in the blur she looked curious. “And what happened in the next few months?”

_I'm sure you already know_ , he thought, but still replied, “The same as before. He caught me talking to her – just _talking_ – and went off the rails. Punched Kasim. Ended up in prison again.” Heavily, he shook his head. “In the weeks leading up to him getting locked up, we could barely talk to each other. We both knew where it was leading, and it was killing us both slowly. Liv... we couldn't even hold it together for her. As far as Aaron was concerned, I'd failed.”

“And have you?”

He turned to look at her. “Of course I did. I just said so.”

“You set out a lot of tasks for yourself when this first started,” she said, running her hand over the page of the planner. “Make your relationship with Aaron healthy. Not kill Katie. Be more honest. Would you not say that you achieved most of those things?”

He stared at her blankly. “But none of those things mattered,” he said. “Aaron still didn't trust me in the end. Everything that I did to make us healthy failed.”

She shrugged. “Maybe it didn't matter if you were healthy or not. Maybe Aaron would always have those insecurities. Or _maybe_ ,” she said, “you're just an asshole, and you did those things the first time around and nothing you could ever do here would erase that fully. Maybe it's as simple as you understanding that bad things happen, whether you want it to happen or not, and that sometimes those things can't be changed. Maybe you need to-”

“Accept it, move past it and keep going,” Robert finished for her.

“As I've said, what you take from this is up to you. Whether or not you failed is up to you.” She studied him for a moment. “But tell me. Have you actually cheated on him yet? This time, I mean.”

Robert closed his eyes as it came to him. He'd been standing outside the Mill, watching the clouds roll by. He'd just been about to go in, just about to call Rebecca. Aaron had refused, point blank, to let him visit at all, and it was finally getting to him. Finally becoming too much to bare.

“No,” he said. Then, realising what that meant, “I _haven't_ yet. I still haven't done it.”

“It looks like you have two options,” she said. “But this is about you, and the options that you are setting for yourself. I imagine that you've figured out what those are.”

He had. Go back to the original timeline and deal with what he'd originally started, or go to that day and see if he'd learned anything at all.

“It's your choice,” she reiterated.

“I won't remember any of this will I?” he asked.

“No. Everything you do after will be completely of your own thought. There will be no more influence from me from now on.”

And somehow that was fine. Better than fine, even.

“Have you made your choice?”

He had.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you interpret this fic in a thousand ways. I hope, like Robert and Aaron, you have your own ideas about who the woman and why she did what she did. I hope you decide if she's evil or not. I hope you reiterate before coming to any sort of decision.  
> And if you hated this, then I hope you accept it, move past it and keep on going.  
> One more chapter left.


	18. Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Change: an act or process in which something becomes different

He woke comfortably. The bed he was laying in felt worn, yet familiar in a way that kept it cosy, as if Robert’s own back had been engraved into the mattress over time. On top of him, he could feel cotton sheets draped lightly against his hipbones and warm sunlight spilling onto his bare, exposed chest; guarding him from the possibility of coldness. Still in a sleep-induced haze, he clumsily reached beside him, searching, but found that he was alone. The empty space was warm, though, so he hadn’t been for long.

Cracking an eye open, he looked at the state of the room. There was a wardrobe directly opposite him – a darkly coloured, wooden thing – and a chest of drawers resting next to it, clothes messily thrown and piled on top of it. The dis-coordination of it all made him smile suddenly, a warm feeling spreading inside of him. The walls were a bright white and anywhere else he would’ve thought they looked sterile, but here they were decorated with so many photographs and artwork that he felt it immediately, dancing and drumming happily in his chest. The same feeling that had started growing when he’d noticed the purple bedsheets, smelt the deodorant wafting in from the hallway, heard Radio 1 blaring downstairs.

He was home.

But alongside that feeling was another one. One that was a little harder to explain. He sat up and looked behind him, where a large, artistic picture hanged on the wall above their bed. It was a picture that was familiar, as was everything else in the room, but it made that other feeling gain speed as it raced around inside of him.

Swinging his legs round and sitting up, he realised with a start how clear his head was. As if he’d slept for years. He reached for his phone and read that it had only just gone eight. Strange, since he only ever felt this good if he’d been able to sleep in until just before midday. Again, he searched the room around him. It was the same as it had always been, but Robert couldn’t escape the feeling that he was missing something. That something was different.

“Finally decided to get up, have ya?” came a voice from behind him, making him look round. It was Aaron, running a towel over his damp hair and grinning at him. Robert was struck with how young he looked when he was like that, all happy and boyish.

He smiled back at him. “It’s just gone eight,” he argued. “I have an hour until I need to be anywhere.” He ran his eyes over him, doing it so slowly he was sure Aaron could feel just as much as if he were running his hands down him. “There’s a lot you can do in an hour.”

Aaron scoffed and threw the towel onto the mess on the chest of drawers. “It’s a Tuesday.”

“Sex banned on a Tuesday?”

“It is when we’ve got a delivery of scrap coming in,” he checked his own phone, “half an hour.”

“That’s still plenty of time,” he pointed out.

“Behave,” he warned, but kissed him anyway; short and sweet. “I’ll see ya when you get up there?”

Robert nodded happily, but the feeling that something was different kept bubbling up, making him frown.

“Aaron?” he called before his husband could leave the room. “What day is it today?”

Squinting at him, Aaron huffed a laugh. “It's the 20 th  , you muppet. August 20  th .”

 

***

Even the village was the same, everyone pottering around and going about their days normally. He watched them all as he walked to work: David putting newspapers out outside the shop, Laurel chatting to Brenda by the Cafe, Harriet walking down the street and towards the church. It was all so regular and nonchalant, yet Robert couldn't escape the feeling that something cosmic had shifted somewhere. Maybe a million miles away a star was imploding and somehow he could sense it, the end of something that colossal, all the way over here. Or, maybe, somewhere something small was happening, like a child's birthday party or a house warming, and, despite the insignificance of it all, Robert could feel the milestones being made, cemented into time like rocks in the ground. Either way, it was that feeling – the one telling him that something had _happened_ – that was making him pay that extra bit of attention, because how could something so seemingly impactful happen without him noticing it?

As he walked passed the B&B he spotted Eric and Diane standing outside. They both had their arms crossed and were arguing with a customer, who seemed very adamant that they were going to get a refund. It made him pause, for a moment, and think about Val. He wondered how much Eric still thought about her, if he still grieved her, if he still blamed someone. He wondered, then, if a part of him still blamed himself. Maybe that was what he was feeling; the feeling of moving on.

Deciding that he hoped so, he kept walking.

 

***

Like an itch he just couldn't scratch, the feeling followed him to work. It made his leg twitch and his pen tap again and again as his mind kept getting drawn back to it. He'd probably spent an hour analysing Adam's posters on the walls (the ones that Aaron had left up long after the man himself had left) and had definitely looked a little too closely at Nicola's red hair as she worked opposite him, only being stopped by Ellis coming in to make a cup of tea. When Aaron came in a little later to get himself one he must've noticed it, because he'd rolled his eyes and forced Robert to come on a lunch break with him.

“Having one of those days?” he asked him teasingly as they ate their bacon sarnies, sat outside so they could soak up the rare summer warmth.

“See, that's the thing,” he tried to explain. “I don't even know if it's today, or just... life in general.”

Aaron hummed around a sip of his coffee. “Is it like before?” he asked. “Because you don't know the future anymore?”

In the first few months after he'd caught up with himself, he'd woken up almost daily sweating and panting; worrying about every bad thing he didn't know about. Some days he'd have just been in the middle of the village and it would hit him that a car could hit Aaron or Liv at any moment and he'd have no idea that it was about to happen. Then bad things _did_ happen, and it got even worse, like everything with Lachlan. In some strange way he'd managed to keep on blaming himself, wondering how he couldn't see the signs when he'd lived through everything with that boy twice.

And, yeah, turns out knowing everything one second then nothing the next wasn't much fun at all.

“It's not like that,” he said. “I don't know, I woke up this morning and felt like something was different.”

“Maybe you're just happier.” Aaron shrugged. “Or maybe you've finally noticed how long your hairs gotten.”

Robert laughed, subconsciously tugging a hand through it. That was one of the things living through everything again had given him; the realisation that he actually quite liked his hair a little longer, a little more wavy.

“You like it long really,” Robert said, and Aaron smiled because he did. “And I get weird feelings all the time these days. I'm sure it's nothing.”

“Fancy that – weird feelings we're allowed to thinks nothing. Never thought I'd see the day.”

Then they were both smiling and the sun was shining and everything was just _nice_. The itch, although very much still there, had faded into background music and all Robert knew was that he was happy – happier than he'd ever been.

He was just about to ask him if he wanted to spend the rest of lunch in their bedroom when a woman approached them.

“I'm sorry,” she said nervously, glancing back and forth between them. Robert thought that she must have been in her twenties, then quickly squinted and realised he was wrong; there was no way she could be any younger than forty. “I'm just stopping in the village and have frankly no clue where anything is, would it be alright if I could be pointed in the direction of the graveyard?”

“Oh, course,” Aaron said while Robert continued to stare at her. There was something familiar there, something he was sure he'd seen before. “If you keep going down main street you'll see that the church is just down there, the graveyards just next to it.”

Before she could thank him, Robert asked, “Have you got any family buried there?” Aaron shot him an odd look, so he clarified, “It's just, it's a small village. You might be related to someone we know, is all.”

The woman smiled warmly. “Only distant family, I'm afraid. Thought I'd stopped by and see how things have been getting on.” She looked to the table where their lunch lay, and her smile grew wider. “Americano. That's what I drink.” She looked back up and winked at him, her short, brown hair catching a breeze. “You've made the right choice.”

With that she was off down the street, almost vanishing as she went.

Aaron shook his head. “What an odd woman.”

“Yeah,” Robert said half-heartedly. “Strange.”

He sat back in his seat, taking a deep breath, his chest suddenly feeling a lot lighter.

Aaron frowned at him. “Everything alright?”

He didn't know. He didn't think anything would ever truly be alright, really, because he'd make mistakes again, the both of them would, and bad things would just keep on coming. But maybe, just maybe, if they let themselves stop and thinks and _remember_ then maybe they could reach something close to alright.

“Ya know what,” he said eventually. “I think I am – right now.”

“Right now?” he asked with a smile and a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah. Definitely right now.”

Reaching across the table he took Aaron's hand, squeezing it tight.

He noticed, quietly, that the itching had stopped.

 

***

They found out, just after, that Liv had passed her re-sits. Robert had known she could do it, but it was still a relief to all of them to finally put maths homework behind them. Aaron had decided that they should take it as a sign that there were more good things to come, more happiness, and Robert had hoped and prayed that he was right.

And for the most part, it was. Everything with Vic was still very much awful and hard for all of them, and Robert kept continuing to make mistakes, but the two of them had looked after each other like they'd done a thousand times before. And then, when the time was right, they'd finally made that phone call to Natalie and made the final leap towards surrogacy – with everyone they love around them.

And one night, when it was winter again and the days were darker and moods were too, Aaron had turned to Robert in the dark and asked him, “Do you ever think about what would have happened if this all went differently? If... on that day you'd-”

“No, I don't,” Robert had responded, immediately and honestly. “And you know why? Because in the end, I don't think it really matters. I think... or, I'd _like_ to think, that we'd get here anyway. You and me in this house, starting our family, looking after Liv. I know when I told ya about it all I said things were looking bleak but... so was everything this time, too. In the end, I don't think there's anything to think about.”

And maybe that had frustrated Aaron, and had made creases in his forehead as he frowned and asked, “Then what do you think was the point of all this then? If we were just gonna end up the same?”

But, like always, Robert knew what to say. “Because, despite me changing everything, you still loved me. How mad is that? That everything around us was warped and distorted and you still fell for me, and stayed with me when everything got even madder. What more proof do I need that it's always gonna be you and me?”

And all Aaron had for that was a smile as he leaned across the bed to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him.

Because, really, there was nothing more to say.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know what to say about this ending. This was something I wrote either in the depths of night (which is why uploads would always be at around 11) or sneakily during study sessions as sixth form, and was every much a guilty pleasure as you could imagine. I hope you enjoyed the madness as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you'll all hear from me again soon.


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